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Nonprofit Radio for June 13, 2022: Appealing To Tomorrow’s Major Donors

 

Nejeed Kassam: Appealing To Tomorrow’s Major Donors

There’s $50 trillion set to change hands in North America by 2050, enriching today’s millennials and Generation Z. Let’s talk about cultivation and fundraising strategies to reach these generations. My guest is Nejeed Kassam from Keela. (This is part of our coverage of #22NTC, hosted by NTEN.)

 

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[00:01:40.64] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with blended vaginitis. If you inflamed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show appealing to tomorrow’s major donors, There’s $50 trillion North America by 2050 enriching today’s millennials and generation Z let’s talk about cultivation and fundraising strategies to reach these generations. My guest is Najid Kassem from kila. This is part of our coverage of the 2022 non profit technology conference hosted by N 10 On Tony’s take two. Trepidation about new york city, we’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o And by 4th dimension technologies I. T infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Just like 3D but they go one dimension deeper here is appealing to tomorrow’s major donors. Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 N. T. C 2022 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10 with me now is Najid Qasem Ceo and founder of Kayla Najid, welcome back to nonprofit radio

[00:02:18.54] spk_1:
Thanks so much Tony and just for the folks that are listening because I might have a conflict I’m also on the board of directors at N10 and so really really proud to be part of the governance team at antenna and grateful to all of those of you who attended NTC this past, I guess almost a month ago now. Wonderful.

[00:02:31.14] spk_0:
Thank you for thank you for letting me know. We have Miko Whitlock and Jason shim. I have to see if they’re still on, but we’ve got, we’ve got Beth Kanter coming up. Um,

[00:02:32.86] spk_1:
I mean those are, those are my people, that’s my tribe. So you’ve got a great, great lineup coming up

[00:02:57.34] spk_0:
well. And you’re on the, you’re on the board of a terrific organization. Any sample ward is our technology and social media contributor. So she’s on many times a year sharing her wisdom on, on those subjects. We’re gonna talk about your seminar topic. Great transfer of wealth, how to reach the next generation.

[00:03:00.54] spk_1:
Absolutely.

[00:03:07.04] spk_0:
And you say you’re in your description that there’s a $50 trillion dollar transfer coming. What’s, what’s on the horizon?

[00:04:22.34] spk_1:
Well, you know, I think a lot of the topic is just about the fact that boomers and those, the generation, the great generations as I like to call them, are starting to, to, to find peace and move on to whatever happens in the next stage of our lives and you know, as well as they pass our grand, my grandparents passed away. Um, the last couple of years and you see that generation, my parents are starting to get older and thinking about the next, you know, the next chapter of their lives and so for those of us that are gen, x, gen y and I guess gen z is now, um, you know, a lot of money ultimately is going to transfer between generations, the boomers and their parents Postwar really generated absurd amounts, like, like, you know, unthinkable amounts of wealth and, and that’s all transferring and there’s a bunch of really interesting factors that are, that are going to change how giving is done. What’s gonna happen to that? Just the demographic, you know, general demographics in the United States and so, you know, a lot of money is going to change hands and, and that’s going to have a profound impact on getting because for a whole host of reasons we’ll talk about today.

[00:04:25.00] spk_0:
Yeah, So you’re expecting that millennials are going to grow the

[00:04:28.50] spk_1:
wealth that’s

[00:04:30.28] spk_0:
left to them. Well, if they spend it, then we’re hoping they’re gonna be giving it away because otherwise we have nothing to talk about it. If they’re all buying super yachts, then you and I may as well end right now, shut the mics

[00:04:43.04] spk_1:
off. I mean, for the sake of humanity, I really hope that they’re not just buying superyachts. How about that?

[00:04:49.40] spk_0:
Okay, right. Super yachts, private

[00:04:51.42] spk_1:
islands.

[00:04:53.18] spk_0:
You and I

[00:04:54.38] spk_1:
can’t possibly conceive of tony

[00:05:04.04] spk_0:
Okay, I hope not. I hope it doesn’t go that way. Alright. Otherwise, like I said, you know, you and I are done in three minutes. Okay, let’s go on the safe assumption on the humanitarian and um magnanimous assumption that uh, they’re gonna be giving a lot of this wealth away and, and they’ll be growing it too. Right?

[00:05:16.14] spk_1:
Absolutely.

[00:05:21.44] spk_0:
So you’re encouraging us to focus well before we get to the, you know, what to do, how to reach these folks.

[00:05:25.94] spk_1:
What

[00:05:41.94] spk_0:
are, what are some of these factors that you alluded to? Why are you expecting? Why? I think the, the estimates I’ve seen of transfer from baby boomers to millennials is not 50 trillion. I’ve seen 20-30 trillion or something like that. But you’re saying so in

[00:06:00.54] spk_1:
20, in 2014, um, um, For Boston College or some researchers at Boston College did a research and their prediction was 58 trillion would, would be transferred to the next gen. And that I think it includes gen x and gen y and ultimately gen z. So it’s not just millennials would be in the amount of 58 trillion, but when we’re talking 30 40 50 ultimately, I think it’s the same. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just a huge amount of money.

[00:06:28.14] spk_0:
It is. Okay. And so you’d like us to approach are younger donors Because we’re talking about, we’re talking about anybody 60 and under, where, you know, I

[00:06:41.44] spk_1:
would say like when does gen x start 50 and under maybe probably 55. I don’t know whatever gen x is. But yes, I think millennials are the the the most commonly, um, the most commonly thought about populist, But ultimately I think, you know, the age of the internet, the age of artificial intelligence, all of these kinds of things are, are, are ushering in new ways to engage donors. And I think that’s the crux of it.

[00:06:59.74] spk_0:
Okay, okay, now you’re using millennials and gen X interchangeably.

[00:07:18.54] spk_1:
No, No, No Gen X is what 1965-1980? Millennials are 1982, Some say 2000, some say 96. And then gen, Gen Z is people that are too young for me to think about.

[00:07:31.34] spk_0:
Okay, we’re not there yet. Um, Alright, what, what’s your, what’s your advice around talking to these? Um, millenials and gen xers?

[00:09:03.54] spk_1:
Yeah, I think you asked a great question previously and I’ll get to this question, but let’s talk about why they’re different because I think that’s really important to note. There’s a few factors that are, that are super interesting. The first one is, household sizes are smaller and you might think, why does that matter? Well, there are fewer millennials and gen Z s than there were their parents. And so between, I think it’s from 1962 around today or 2018 or whenever this data was published, Household size in the us has gone from 3.6 people per family to 3.1 people. Now that might be only half a person, but that’s a substantial number of people. And what it means is the people inheriting money are actually gonna be fewer, right in terms of their populace, but they’re gonna have more capacity in terms of their wealth. And so I think this data point is actually quite um, it’s interesting, it’s a little bit terrifying in some ways because you know, you’re gonna organizations, the sector as a whole is going to have to seek, you know, a a lot more from individual people as opposed to being able to diversify in the same way. I think that’s a very interesting piece of data and one that I think is going to change the dynamic, especially of major gifts because, you know, currently you think about the people, the high net worth individuals, the families, they care about health care or they care about this or there’s a lot of yours, Right? I think with that next generation there’s gonna be a lot of ants because there’s less people inheriting larger amounts of money. And I think excuse me, that’s quite profound. Don’t you think tony I

[00:09:25.94] spk_0:
do. I think I have a person, times tens, the many tens of millions of exactly that we have in this country that’s significant. Uh, you know, we’ve always thought of the average family as, you know, a family of four. All right, so you’re saying

[00:09:28.56] spk_1:
you’re

[00:09:41.34] spk_0:
saying the average is 3.6, but look 3.6 rounds to 43.1, barely, barely, barely three. So, you know, with 3.6 and four, 3.1 is a big difference.

[00:10:03.74] spk_1:
Absolutely. And think about it like this, if somebody, you know, earns $250 million over their life and they built a portfolio of real estate and wealth and influence ultimately. And they take that and they go to one kid, okay, let’s say each kid, you know, 100 25 million, but when one child is inheriting all that money, your major donor pool is ultimately getting smaller and and so now they have more power, they have more influence, they have actually ability to write bigger checks, but organizations are gonna have to do better at collaborating to generate these things because whether we like to admit it or not in the sector, tony

[00:10:20.21] spk_0:
Another, the other 125 million goes to the Super Yacht.

[00:10:23.84] spk_1:
Of course, sorry, tony slipped my mind. So

[00:10:27.56] spk_0:
there we are. So we’re done again again, we’re done. One kid and one super yacht, there’s your 250. Alright,

[00:10:33.59] spk_1:
You just you just cut generosity and a half and I think we started, Alright,

[00:10:37.34] spk_0:
let’s reduce the super yacht, you know, let’s say in

[00:10:40.44] spk_1:
70

[00:10:44.94] spk_0:
five, let’s do 75 million on the Super Yacht. Another 50. Another 50 to be very generous

[00:12:26.14] spk_1:
with. I’m gonna cut you off because I’d like to share a couple more pieces of data that are useful. The first one, is that, Is that migration has changed over the past kind of 30, 40 years Kids or kids in that 3.1 case right, families are actually staying more geographically close together. And that was especially heightened during the pandemic, where 52% of people aged 18 or 29 were actually at home with their folks in 2020. Now, if you look at data from Um, I think it’s 2004 is when it starts people, both seniors. And so like the parents of these boomers who many of them have passed now, but also the kids of these boomers are staying closer together, which means, you know, they’re more integrated into their families. And what that at least the research that we read and I understood or interpreted was that that can actually mean that maybe people are more aligned with their parents, beliefs or they’re more engaged with them? Or at least they certainly know their parents interests better. Now. The question we’re going to have to figure out is is that going to make them more likely to continue the legacies? Let’s say I I’m I’m let’s say there’s a high net worth family. Okay. And they’ve spent years giving to poverty alleviation? Well, these kids or kids that inherit this money because they’re closer to those parents, both geographically and, you know, in many other ways, are they going to continue that legacy? Are they going to rebel against it when they give? And it’s a question we don’t know the answer to, but it’s an interesting piece of data well,

[00:12:31.04] spk_0:
which also leads to, uh, you know, our our subject of appealing to these

[00:12:32.07] spk_1:
folks

[00:13:45.64] spk_0:
so that they don’t, by default, abandon the philanthropy of their, of their parents. I mean, they may do it consciously, but you don’t want it to just happen because you never gave it a shot to, to avoid it from happening. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They’ll develop your media strategy for you. What are the parts of that? It starts with identifying your core messages then defining those channels, those outlets where those messages ought to be heard. The places where you want to be known as a thought leader turn to will do the legwork to approach those outlets and as they close opportunities for you, craft your message appropriately to the specific audience you’re gonna be talking to. That is a media strategy. That’s what turned to communications can do for you because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O now back to appealing to tomorrow’s major donors because I want to keep talking about the trends before we get to the Yeah. And I think there’s one

[00:14:14.84] spk_1:
interesting one that we can’t forget and that’s women outlive men, um, by like, I think it’s like five years on average in the US now. So it’s like, that’s a, that’s like, you know, a meaty 56789% of people’s lives. Right? And so it’s interesting because unlike, you know, unlike, unfortunately similar to many other things in our history, you’ve kind of focused on like older white men that’s been like, you know, kind of it’s you see it in representation in politics on boards of directors and ceo position in funding for investments, whatever it might be.

[00:14:27.65] spk_0:
Call it what it is. We’re talking about sexism.

[00:15:27.04] spk_1:
Sure, look, I’m a person of color. I I don’t and my wife’s a person of color who is a woman. She has it way worse tonight. Right? And so the interesting thing is my wife’s gonna be gonna outlive me almost for certain. I mean for sure in my case, but, you know, demographically as well. And so philanthropy forget about just the transfer of wealth. The transfer of wealth is going to be inter mediated by the transfer from men who are dying at, you know, whatever 70 something to women who are probably dying 56 years later. And so philanthropy is going to be affected by the fact that decision making historically and giving has been made by the primary breadwinners. But as we see more women taking positions and leadership making more money. We see women inheriting money, they’re gonna give differently. And I don’t think we exactly know how that is yet. But that’s like I said, it’s like a stepping in the in the in the transfer, right? So I did a point that’s super relevant to this conversation.

[00:15:40.94] spk_0:
There is research about the way women give being different than the way men give. They want to be more involved. Uh, they were more involved in in how the money is used. Um, it’s less transactional for them. And uh,

[00:15:45.73] spk_1:
that’s interesting. I didn’t know that.

[00:16:06.54] spk_0:
Yeah. And um, they like, you know, they like to have more of a role in how it’s spent. Um, and it’s, yeah, I don’t, I think there’s, there’s other research to that. They like to be not only involved in how what their gift is is going to do, but be involved in the organization generally. So maybe they’re giving they’re giving what we’re talking about major donors, I think is what

[00:16:17.80] spk_1:
the research

[00:16:18.85] spk_0:
research is. Um, but they’ll also be, they’ll increase their volunteering with your

[00:16:23.94] spk_1:
organization, which

[00:16:27.64] spk_0:
may have nothing at all to do with their giving. Uh, they again, less transactional more, much more relational when it’s when

[00:16:33.69] spk_1:
it’s and I think what’s interesting is like, there isn’t much data on that yet, Right. Because of the demographic realities and the power dynamics that have been so, so unfortunate. And so you see

[00:16:44.44] spk_0:
like, Yeah,

[00:16:50.04] spk_1:
and that’s, I think you’re gonna see more of the research and ultimately more from that because it’s valuable, you know,

[00:17:00.64] spk_0:
the sexism in fundraising is, uh, I think long standing and obviously shortsighted, um, not just in fundraising, right.

[00:17:03.23] spk_1:
tony and everything, to be honest.

[00:17:05.64] spk_0:
Absolutely, yeah.

[00:18:37.84] spk_1:
But what’s interesting is there’s also been and I’m not, you know, I want to kind of move on because there’s also been quite a significant ageism in fundraising. You said it yourself, we spend, what is it 80% of our time on the top? 20% of donors? I think that’s the math that everyone teaches at fundraising school. Um, but what’s interesting is that’s shortsighted ultimately. Yes, I understand it completely. I really do. But what is interesting is, and this is something I touched on in my lecture 10 10 was, you know, the investment in youth giving has actually been minimal to be honest, because it hasn’t seen us providing as much instant return on investment, which is true. It’s a long game, not a short game, right? And but youth, the youth, especially in the context of this transfer of wealth, are going to inherit all that money. And if you haven’t laid your groundwork, you can’t suddenly show up at their door and young people giving even if they don’t have wealth yet or at all. But yet for the sake of this conversation is different. A couple of interesting trends. The first one is young people and I say this millennials I think is the research that I’m quoting are much more influenced by their peers. So young people, I think the data point is our 46% more likely to donate if a co worker does and 65% more likely to volunteer if a co worker does. That’s fascinating to me because it actually it’s a social activity in a weird way. You know, the power, you know, we’ll talk about social media maybe in a bit. But that’s interesting. The second data

[00:18:45.66] spk_0:
point. That’s Yeah. So that’s just that’s co workers, not even necessarily friends.

[00:18:51.84] spk_1:
I assume the data is similar for friends,

[00:18:55.34] spk_0:
friends giving up their birthdays, friends doing peer to peer campaigns.

[00:19:06.54] spk_1:
Well, I think, and I think I have a peer to peer data point that in my notes, let me just see if I can pull it up. I’ll see if I can find it. But let’s keep going. Yeah,

[00:19:12.64] spk_0:
Okay. But coworkers. That’s that’s quite an affinity for co worker giving.

[00:20:19.84] spk_1:
But and you know, we see it, look, I have a lot of young millennials in all my staff and they’re wonderful and amazing people and they’re definitely, you know, whenever something personal giving, that’s the other point. The second point, this is actually a nice segue giving us much more personal to millennial generation. And that has a couple of ramifications for example, to segue from our previous conversation When you know, we have, I think we have staff from 15 countries at Kayla um, on our team born who are born in 15 countries. And so, you know, whether it’s an issue area they care about or something happening in in a in a home or or former place of theirs, they share the plight and also opportunities to engage, right? I think this is a beautiful part of our culture because it helps, you know, But I can, I can watch this in action. I can see I’ve made donations because our coworkers feels an affinity or a passion or, or a sense of connection to a cause. And so, you know, I think that is interesting because I’ve watched it kind of firsthand, right, tony I think that’s super. That’s it kind of reinforces from a non data perspective kind of qualitatively exactly what this data point is showing

[00:20:51.14] spk_0:
interest. But I think, you know, what else, you know, uh, anecdotally I’m a young baby boomer and I’ve never done that. I’ve never given because a coworker gate, I mean I haven’t, haven’t had coworkers for something like 20 years, but back when I did for the short time that I did and I could stand being an employee of someone else. I, I never gave for that reason.

[00:22:47.24] spk_1:
Well, and I think the social media thing is, is I can’t find the data point and I apologize, but I think it’s essentially the same thing. It’s that folks are influenced, not in a bad way, but like folks are inspired is a better way to put it from their communities ultimately. And it’s not church or synagogue or mosque or united way as much or community centers anymore. It’s what they’re seeing on social media, what matters most of their friends and what that actually is kind of segue. Me too is that they’re giving is much more personal for millennials than it was. You know I say our generation I’m right at the cusp of being a millennial but I consider myself at least emotionally outside of it. And so things like organizational status, tax deductibility, organizational legitimacy are much less at the forefront of their decision making. They you know the rise of go fund me where people are giving to people directly the rise of um of of of not having the intermediary of an organization. Um the rise of not carrying the fact that they’re not going to get a tax receipt which is gonna offset a percentage of their donations. Millennials aren’t necessarily looking for that break or something tangible. They want that feeling of making an impact right? There’s a huge feel. It’s it’s why we see the rise of you know be corpse attracting more staff and the why that almost every millennial says when you’re looking for a job impact is a part of that calculus. And so you see those I’m gonna go out and say values of a generation applying themselves or or or or showing their face in giving in a very different way from from me and you and our parents and I think that’s very interesting.

[00:24:09.24] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. Their I. T. Solution is I. T. Infra in a box it’s the I. T. Buffet, it’s budget friendly. It’s holistic. You pick what you need and you leave the rest behind the different components that are available. I. T. Assessment, multi factor authentication for security, other security methods, cost analysis of where you’re standing, what you’re spending money on the help desk and there’s more you choose what’s right for your I. T. Budget for your I. T. Situation as it exists. Like they’ll help you fill the gap between where you are and where you want to be. That’s the I. T. Infra in a box. Fourth dimension technologies tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Let’s return to appealing to tomorrow’s major donors. Let’s turn to what nonprofits can do to huh exploit this and using exploitation as in a non pejorative sense. Take advantage of or

[00:24:09.64] spk_1:
C the opportunity I think.

[00:24:15.14] spk_0:
Yeah in the data and then the and then the trend.

[00:24:17.12] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:24:18.01] spk_0:
And you know I think enormous wealth transfer. So let’s talk about the

[00:26:02.74] spk_1:
really low hanging fruit like the most boring fruit that you could possibly and and and that’s like you know when high net worth individuals give for major donors for major giving. Excuse me as major donors. They don’t see it as I. Samuel l smith is making the donation. It’s me the smith on behalf of my family. The smith family. It’s a family. There’s so much of that family legacy idea and so when organizations are so privileged to get those kinds of donations don’t just look at Sam look at SAm’s wife and look at Sam’s kids and make those connections with the family and that’s for two reasons. One, it’s the right thing to do. Super obvious. But to it’s actually laying the groundwork for, for relationships in the future, share the impact being made, engage the families, the kids. Especially because if you want to get another gift, if you want to, you know, create opportunity from that, it’s going to happen likely either when the donor dies and his or her wife does it or husband, but much more likely their kids continuing that legacy. So engage with them. Like that’s not hard. It’s like, you know, bring them, bring them in, engage them, take them out to lunch instead of just the major donor or the couple or whatever it is. It’s an easy thing to do is encouraging families to come and come around recognizing the families, not just the person and then offering entry points for the kids to um, to engage the organization as volunteers. You know, we talked in the, in the lecture and, and Nathaniel gave a great example about youth councils and, you know, bringing on kind of communities or boards of youth. Often the kind of, yeah, kind

[00:26:08.60] spk_0:
of advisory like

[00:26:09.50] spk_1:
engagement boards I think would be the best way to put it. But yeah,

[00:26:13.03] spk_0:
I’m,

[00:26:15.91] spk_1:
I’m just in our notes, we call them like youth, hold on. I’ll find the exact term we used.

[00:26:22.30] spk_0:
I

[00:26:22.64] spk_1:
think they’re called youth councils,

[00:26:24.24] spk_0:
you’ve counted. But what you would call them for the folks. Youth council,

[00:26:27.60] spk_1:
right?

[00:26:40.94] spk_0:
You want that, you want that perspective in your, in your event planning, certainly in your event planning, but in your fundraising, you know, you may, you may not be thinking of peer to peer well,

[00:26:41.52] spk_1:
and that’s actually my next point

[00:26:43.60] spk_0:
Are in their 30s and 40s, you may not be taking a peer to peer campaigns.

[00:28:54.04] spk_1:
And I have a feeling a big part of there’s a, there’s a symbiosis between that data point on giving from coworkers and peer to peer. So peer to peer kind of had a lot of sex appeal a few years ago, and then people were like, is it that valuable? I’m here to say peer to peer is phenomenally valuable, but not necessarily because people think it is or thought it was. I think a lot of people thought, oh, it’s gonna spike our donation. I’m in it for the long game here. To me, Pierre, Pierre is an entry point to engagement with an entirely new group of donors. I think the numbers in the 80% of people who give through a peer to peer campaign are first time donors to the cause. And, and if you don’t store them effectively, which we can talk about later or on another show or I’m sure you have really qualified folks talking about it, you’re gonna lose that donor to bring them into your giving ecosystem as an organization, but they are an entry point where somebody else is doing the lead generation for you, right? Ultimately that giving about coworkers, I give to every single period of your campaign. One of my staff’s writing in a, you know, um, cycling in an event or running a race or I don’t know whatever it might be. That’s an entry point. That’s an entry point. And it’s an entry point to diversify your donor base to access new donors to get your giving list up and, and we all know in the space, the donor retention is a lot cheaper than donor acquisition. Every data, like there’s absurd amounts of data that show that and peer to peer is a great example and, and it’s how you engage a generation and I’m gonna take it a step further. Millennials like to feel agency, they want to be part of something that goes back to that feeling that personal nature of it. When you get folks engaging with peer to peer, what you’re doing is not just getting money. You’re, you’re, you’re building advocates right? Like the youth council, but much more scalable, ultimately right. You’re getting perspective, you’re building advocates, you’re, you’re finding new ways to get into communities and you’re ultimately empowering social media to do the work for you and why wouldn’t you do that? And I think it doesn’t have to be a big event or a race. It can be, you know, that we can use peer to peer much more creatively to, to think about the long term opportunities, does that make sense? tony I

[00:29:21.34] spk_0:
had a guest, yes, it does have a guest who used the example of a local animal shelter they hosted a dog wedding for and, and you know, again an event to attract younger donors and, and it was phenomenally successful. I know you said it to my

[00:29:44.94] spk_1:
staff, they would all go like all these, it’s just, that’s a lot of them have dogs and you know, you know, it is what it is and it’s, it’s wonderful for them cause a lot of them are having kids, right? tony look at that number kid that 3.6 to 3.1 that someone’s not having Children and so, but that’s a way to encourage an entire demographic, you probably would, wouldn’t get to otherwise. I think that’s brilliant. It’s brilliant.

[00:29:51.44] spk_0:
Her other idea was a bark mitzvah.

[00:29:53.74] spk_1:
I’m

[00:29:57.81] spk_0:
trying

[00:29:59.08] spk_1:
to make a joke with mazel tov like,

[00:30:04.45] spk_0:
like

[00:30:05.12] spk_1:
it’s there, it’s there,

[00:30:19.34] spk_0:
it was all about to share that with her. Um, yeah, very good, very good, very good. Um, yeah, as somebody who thinks that the only good puns are the ones that I think of, but I thought I thought bark mitzvah was very good, yes muzzle top outstanding, very good, very good. Alright, tony I told

[00:30:28.50] spk_1:
you I have now been a dad for two years and so my dad joke. This is just, it’s, it’s coming, it’s rising, you know?

[00:30:40.34] spk_0:
Well you’re still just approaching it because is very good. When the jokes start to be about your genes, you know, then then then they’re then they’re tired. They’re

[00:30:47.42] spk_1:
tired. You’re

[00:30:59.84] spk_0:
just you’re just approaching but but you’re still in the you’re still in the humorous category and not high rolling. You’re not, you haven’t, you haven’t transcended into the eye rolling. Alright.

[00:31:00.18] spk_1:
There’s two more topics I want to touch on briefly before we run out of time.

[00:31:17.24] spk_0:
We have time. Okay. Wait, are these still in the category of what nonprofits can do to, to attract and appeal to and or steward, you mentioned stewardship I want to, you know what be doing do talk

[00:32:23.04] spk_1:
about? I think there’s two factors that we all that. So I I don’t know if this is a do and bring me back onto shore if you need me to. But let’s talk about family foundation and donor advised funds for a second because engaging both of these things is actually critical to capitalizing on the opportunity of of the transfer of wealth. So, you know, for whatever tax reasons, right. A lot of folks might build family foundations or or engage with staff so that they can receive the tax benefits on the event of some kind of liquidation. Whatever it’s selling the company or having a windfall or whatever it might be. But what’s interesting is two things to think about the first one is how are we thinking about that as part of the transfer of wealth? Like what can we do with that? And the second one is, that’s a give now benefit or, you know, benefit other communities. It’s like give now from a tax perspective, give later for the organizations. And so to me, I think laying the groundwork engaging family foundations or high net worth individuals early as that process is starting is going to be super valuable because folks could pass with dispersement quotas very low, at least in Canada. And I think in the States they’re relatively low as well.

[00:32:39.16] spk_0:
Yeah,

[00:33:40.24] spk_1:
5%. So I think Canada just went from 3.5 to 5% in this past budget last week. Actually, well, exactly because their foundations, right. But yeah, so, but the thing is those are, those are like grounds for giving, you know, from a generational wealth because ultimately the kids might be forget about being involved, tony the kids might be actually driving that even when their parents pass on, so the gift has been made, but the, but the, but the beneficiary hasn’t benefited yet. And so it’s this liminal state that if we forget about as organizations and I speak as a board member of six nonprofits or five or whatever the number is, we’re losing an opportunity as part of this transfer of wealth. So laying the groundwork starting to build relationships with both the foundations and the daft or the daft, depending on the structure, getting the kids involved in other ways. Like peer to peer, I think, not forgetting the family foundations and the daft components to generational transfer would be shortsighted.

[00:37:02.03] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. I’m returning very shortly To New York City for two weeks. In fact, as you’re listening to this, I’ll be in the city And you know, I lived in the city for 15 years, but I’ve got some trepidation about returning. Um and I don’t think that my situation is any different than yours. You know, returning to old Patterns, old places, it might be an office, might be returning home after having been away through the pandemic. That’s my situation. I haven’t been in New York City since early March 2020. And so things on my mind do I remember how to get around on the subway. I feel like that’s like riding a bicycle. Um I don’t think I’ll get on too many uptown trains when I want to go downtown, but you know, the familiarity, the old alacrity, the smoothness, the comfort, it’s not quite there. I’m gonna have to check check my subway map app more often than I used to where you know, I used to just pop downstairs. Oh yeah, it’s right this way pop pop pop. I know the turn, I know which uh entrance I wanna use. I know exactly where to stand waiting for the train. I don’t have that, that level of comfort anymore. And Covid of course, You know, I did see that. Covid rates are declining in Northeast. But I mean new york city is still a huge city densely populated. So we got some trepidation there. I’m gonna have to be more scrupulous about my masking than uh, than I am here in this little beach town in north Carolina. And then the other part is just, you know, identity. I was a new yorker for 15 years And yes, I, I moved out of New York six years ago. So it’s not, I didn’t move out because of the pandemic. I left several years before, but for two weeks, I don’t know, can I be a new yorker again for two weeks? Is that that allowed? Am I a tourist? I don’t know. I’m, I don’t think I’m an expat new yorker living in north Carolina. I don’t feel like that. No, but am I a tourist returning for two weeks? Interesting. What’s, what’s my identity? How do I fit in former resident? Not, you know, that that’s somewhere higher cash than tourist returning resident, but just for two weeks. So interesting. You know, and I’m sure that you have got lots of these kinds of thoughts going on as you return two old patterns, old places That’s Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for appealing to tomorrow’s major donors with najid Kassem by the way. You’re on five boards, you were dismissed from one of the boards. I’m not at liberty to reveal at this time, but you’ll, they’ll be in touch with you.

[00:37:11.43] spk_1:
Good to know. tony I’ll expect the letter.

[00:37:14.13] spk_0:
Now the donor advised funds and the foundation. Yeah, very good. But when I said, when you know the kids are involved now, um, ultimately, I mean the kids may have already taken over, but ultimately when their baby boomer parents have died, then the kids are gonna be involved, especially in the family

[00:37:38.83] spk_1:
legally required to, to make disbursements. So if you haven’t gotten on the ground game now In 5, 10, 15, 20 years when there are these huge amounts of money, which they constantly have to be giving away, you’re gonna be behind the eight ball and that’s unfortunate position for folks to begin

[00:37:59.33] spk_0:
good. Yeah, no good advice. And that is right in line with what nonprofits can be talking about can be thinking about and and likely acting on. So yes, now you’re, you’re still in that you’re still in the, you’re still in the game.

[00:38:13.82] spk_1:
I’m still, I wanted to end at some point with five weird facts about legacy giving that I found, which I think you would really enjoy. I

[00:38:22.12] spk_0:
probably will. Let’s not, it’s, it’s not the show though. It’s still tony-martignetti non profit radio So hold, hold back with the, with the anarchy and we’ll get, we’ll get to the five points. we still have plenty of

[00:38:27.56] spk_1:
time

[00:38:31.02] spk_0:
alright, the five, five idiosyncrasies maybe of plan giving or legacy giving as you call it.

[00:38:34.79] spk_1:
And I think which is relevant obviously in the transfer of wealth conversation of course. What

[00:38:49.12] spk_0:
about what about more advice about thinking about acting on younger the younger generations, millennials generation, z you mentioned stewardship, what are we talking about? So

[00:38:51.08] spk_1:
I was just, I was just gonna go there and talk about

[00:38:52.72] spk_0:
community.

[00:39:56.92] spk_1:
So, so I think one of the pieces of advice that Nathaniel especially gave is like the post gift engagement, especially in peer to peer. And I thought that was really interesting because, and it’s two kinds of post of stewardship, the stewardship of the donors who give to peer peer campaigns, which is valuable and we talked about expanding the donor base, but I think what she really drummed down on is how important it is to actually engage with the fundraisers, the folks who are actually doing the period, like, you know, who are the, you know, for those of you who don’t know a peer to peer, you have a group of fundraisers who raise money for the cause and donors make donations in support of those fundraisers and the money goes to the organizations, but the fundraisers, they’re kind of like your champions, right? They’re the ones who are casting a wide net who are sharing and promoting, who are engaging their social media’s and I think one thing that we often forget is to thank the fundraisers, we do a good job of thanking the people with the money fine and maybe we don’t do good enough a job but you write a check general, you’re gonna get a thank you. But the fundraisers are actually your access to market their your go to market strategy, so to speak and so

[00:40:03.19] spk_0:
you’re right. They created the campaign.

[00:40:05.66] spk_1:
Absolutely. They did all your work for you

[00:40:15.91] spk_0:
birthday, whatever. Yes. Yeah. Are we are we are you seeing that? Are we bad at thanking the fundraisers? We are we

[00:41:37.01] spk_1:
are um it’s very automated, it’s thanking for signing up more than thank you for what you’ve done. So a lot of like the impact or or community reporting people often forget the fundraisers and there’s you know, we’ve seen that anecdotally, we’ve seen that with our product and I’ve seen that in some of the research as well. And so where you know, Nathaniel gave this great example, I’m trying to remember but she said send a personalized impact report to the things that the fundraisers care about because generally when you’re signing up as a fundraiser for a peer to peer campaign, you give insight into the things you care about the reasons you’re doing. My mom, you know, my grandmother passed away from acts or my you know, my my aunt did this or or someone at my work struggled with that. And so you’re gonna get some insight into what they care about and if you want them to run these things again to do it participate next year or in subsequent years to get more involved as a donor themselves or a volunteer that follow up is so valuable and make and spending the time Doing it for for each of them, even if it’s 10 minutes, you know, make a call, put their name on an impact report, it’s so little in terms of cost or time, but the value of the return and ultimately that feeling of values align, which was, you know, I’ve tried to come through, come up over and over again through the, you know, this conversation about millennials, they’ll feel valued, they’ll feel values aligned and ultimately it’s the right thing to do, but but also it will help you getting them to get engaged in other ways or or

[00:41:56.31] spk_0:
again. Yeah, Alright, very smart, very savvy. I’m disappointed to hear that we’re not being good about the fundraisers. It’s I

[00:42:17.30] spk_1:
think it’s easy because there’s lots of them and it’s hard because we’re not used to it. Right, peer to peer is relatively new, it’s not built into the muscle memory of us as fundraisers and I think that’s yeah, a lot of organizations, especially mid to large ones are actually getting peer to peer officers now. So you know, you’ve got your major grant donor officer or program manager, you got your recurring donor, you got your peer to peer now because the R. O. I. S. Is so strong both from a brand perspective and from the donation perspective. Right.

[00:42:24.33] spk_0:
Very good. Thank you. All right. When you said you had I think you said you had to

[00:43:45.90] spk_1:
I think I think the stewardship one is interesting and it actually comes to you know again it’s that personalization element what what millennials want to hear however you’re engaging them if they’re the kids of high net worth if they’re part of peer to peer campaigns or if they’re just giving in general as part of the transfer they want to see much more intimately or much more directly what’s happening with the money? Right. What are you know the older generation is like how much are you spending on administration? That’s actually a lot less. They don’t care as much and you can see that because of how they’re giving, what they care about is what actually happened to that money. I don’t care if you use 13 cents or 18 cents or 23 cents for administration. How many malaria nets was I able to get from that or you know what value did my gift or my time bring to the cause that I care deeply about and that subtle difference in stewardship is actually quite substantial in how you treat it. So you know it’s not a budget or or or a financial document that you’re sending as part of stewardship it’s a lot around stories around data on impact and and around around making them feel like they were a part of that, which I think is quite different from what we saw in this boomer and other generations. What do you think? tony

[00:43:50.96] spk_0:
Yeah, no, I agree. I think there’s been less attention to that.

[00:43:56.00] spk_1:
It’s

[00:43:56.78] spk_0:
been it’s been growing, but the boomers are probably dying at a faster rate than they can, they can gain the they can gain the benefit of. I’m one of them, I’m happy to be a younger one.

[00:44:32.29] spk_1:
But but I also think it goes back to the values which we’ve sort of been talking about, right, that different reason for giving, right that the reason people millennials take certain jobs or do certain things or engage with certain, you know, community activities or civil society, it is different. And if we don’t steward differently with that, we’re not only missing an opportunity. We’re kind of not meeting folks where they are.

[00:44:34.29] spk_0:
Look, if, you know, if you’re ignoring this, the difference in the generations, you’re, you’re doing so at your peril. You know, you’re, you’re ignoring critical difference is that there’s a difference between your 70 year old donor and your 40 year old donor

[00:44:48.88] spk_1:
and I don’t want your old donor and

[00:44:51.30] spk_0:
You’re 25-30 year old donor

[00:44:53.59] spk_1:
absolutely and I don’t want it to be like we’re just doing this to get more money. Like as much as that’s easy to do. You want to connect like it’s the right thing to

[00:45:14.49] spk_0:
do. Yeah. Including families has always been, especially in planned giving, but it’s, it’s just, it’s just smart. It’s just smart business, um, engagement, which leads leads to more, more, greater impact, whether it’s volunteering or giving or just thinking well of your cause.

[00:45:23.26] spk_1:
You know, you

[00:45:24.25] spk_0:
know, I don’t give to the organization anymore, but they were very good to me when my mom died,

[00:45:30.19] spk_1:
yep.

[00:45:35.29] spk_0:
All right. All right. The Big five now giving, I will, I, I prefer the phrase planned giving so I’ll tolerate, I’ll not accept, but I’ll tolerate your legacy giving moniker.

[00:45:46.49] spk_1:
This kind of, and I’m gonna type

[00:45:49.97] spk_0:
each

[00:46:47.28] spk_1:
of them back to the conversation we’ve had today. So this isn’t out of nowhere. So first data point is 50% of like of, of planned donors give to their organization for more than 20 years before making a planned gift. So when we talk about engaging folks If you’re 45 or 50 right now, you’re part of that gen x or you’re, you know, you’re an elder millennial. If the, if the data point stays strong 20 years, it’s gotta start now, You know, if you want. And that, that’s why this transfer of wealth is super interesting. Number two donors, aged 44 older represent about 75% of all wills and more than 80% of the total value of all charitable requests made. So again, 44 is a young, it’s, you know, it’s not, we’re not talking people in their seventies when people are thinking about their wills, their thinking about the, when their kids are still in single digits often, right? Like, you know, we, my wife and I did our will when she was pregnant. We didn’t have a will before that, but we, you know, we did our, our will our wills. I guess there’s two of them

[00:46:52.80] spk_0:
was donors, 44 and over represents 75% of all existing wills

[00:46:58.73] spk_1:
and more than 80% of the request

[00:47:07.58] spk_0:
And more than 80% of all right. I guess I’d like to see a finer breakdown. Like that’s 44 and over. You know, What’s, what is 60 and over look like

[00:47:10.18] spk_1:
and I don’t have that off my fingertips. But I would bet it’s even it’s the vast majority. I

[00:47:14.95] spk_0:
would bet I

[00:47:33.48] spk_1:
would bet again, Absolutely, absolutely. Number three, 50% of donors age 50 and over with no Children had charitable estate plans, but among similar donors With Children, only 17% had philanthropic plans. That one was actually quite interesting to me.

[00:47:41.08] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:47:42.58] spk_1:
So

[00:47:43.91] spk_0:
your, your folks with no Children are better plan giving prospects than your folks with

[00:47:49.55] spk_1:
Children and

[00:47:50.57] spk_0:
There’s, there’s a difference of 33%.

[00:47:56.28] spk_1:
Absolutely, yeah. In terms of the number of them that have wills. Right, Which is fascinating.

[00:48:01.27] spk_0:
That’s the population is have a charitable request in there

[00:48:07.50] spk_1:
will be 30

[00:48:14.67] spk_0:
3% if you’re, if you’re 55 and over, No, 50 and over, You’re 33% more likely to do it if you’re 50 and over and have no Children than you are if you’re 50 and over and had at least one child.

[00:48:36.57] spk_1:
Yes, absolutely. And again, why is this relevant? Because in this transfer of wealth, more and more people are inheriting money who don’t plan to have kids. Right. And that’s super interesting and incredibly relevant. Um,

[00:48:38.77] spk_0:
You know what, that’s even, it becomes more interesting even on another level, because yeah younger folks are less likely to have kids from the current 55 year

[00:48:48.91] spk_1:
olds. So

[00:48:54.57] spk_0:
assuming human nature isn’t, isn’t changing then that the Delta is gonna change between between the population, that doesn’t have Children in the population. That does, because the population that doesn’t have Children is going to grow up.

[00:49:16.17] spk_1:
And you look at that first data point where most people are gonna make requests to folks that they’ve engaged with for 20 plus years. that’s again relevant because more people are not having kids. So you got to engage them earlier. Because if you do the likelihood of you getting a request is, is going to be like you said, the Delta is going to be higher and higher. Right? Very

[00:49:28.23] spk_0:
interesting. And

[00:49:52.27] spk_1:
ultimately Planned gifts from single, never married donors are actually 13% larger than from married donors. So it’s interesting is, again, how do you focus this? This is, this is part of the lecture he gave on like how do you focus your time? Of course, you have unlimited resources. You focus on everybody. But thinking about folks who haven’t been married, um, or are no longer married and without kids, you’re gonna get bigger donations. Right? And, and that’s super interesting. Especially in the context of people not having kids. A lot of this transfer is inter mediated by that,

[00:50:07.06] spk_0:
that those have always been your best planned gift prospects, folks who are unmarried and no

[00:50:11.65] spk_1:
Children.

[00:50:23.46] spk_0:
Um, not to not to exclude others from your program. If you have the, if you have the luxury of knowing who has Children and who never married and a lot of that, you can just find out from, uh,

[00:50:26.19] spk_1:
social media.

[00:51:04.96] spk_0:
Well, yeah, that’s true. Um, then then those are your, those are your, you’re ultimately best prospects. And thank you for using the word Penultimate correctly. I appreciate that so many things. So many people think that penultimate is is the better one comes after the ultimate because its penultimate. So she correctly, thank you for using Penultimate, it’s among my favorite words along with, but the ultimate, it’s the

[00:51:11.86] spk_1:
Ultimate, the Bark Mitzvah. Ultimately Pet owners are 70% more likely to give request than non pet owners.

[00:51:15.06] spk_0:
Pet owners.

[00:51:33.86] spk_1:
So free will, which is a will’s website in the US. It like helps folks create their wills. Did some really interesting data around the charitable giving of pet owners and folks who have pet owners are much more likely to make requests, 70% more likely than non pet owners. So I have no idea how to use that piece of data, but it’s so obscure and so interesting that I included it as my factoid and I’m sharing with you

[00:51:46.06] spk_0:
for folks who are in a, in an animal oriented non profit you know, they know

[00:51:48.68] spk_1:
that a lot

[00:51:49.97] spk_0:
of pet owners are very concerned about the life of their pets after their own deaths.

[00:51:55.36] spk_1:
So

[00:51:56.60] spk_0:
they’ll make, they’ll often make

[00:51:58.39] spk_1:
gifts for

[00:51:59.55] spk_0:
the care of their

[00:52:29.65] spk_1:
pets. Interesting. I, I think what’s interesting is going back to millennials and the demographic data that we’ve seen as most folks, you know, a lot of people who don’t choose to have Children choose to get a pet. It’s like a pretty common, you know, trend, I think. And so, you know, that’s interesting because there they still have a lot of love and they’ve made a choice which is so personal and they want to continue a legacy, Not just for their pets, for what you said, but rather just in general. And so they see their way to, to continue. They don’t have Children. So their legacy is gonna live through their gifts. And I think that’s, that’s, again, speaking to the 3.6 to 3.1 number of people in the household and that number continuing to, to change.

[00:52:49.05] spk_0:
Thank you very much.

[00:52:51.52] spk_1:
Let’s

[00:52:59.35] spk_0:
let’s take care of a couple of things when it first, don’t you shout out to Nathaniel Fung, since you mentioned a few times, So

[00:53:24.35] spk_1:
was was my co presenter on this. Um I got to give a lot of the nerdy theory that I shared with you all today, but Nathaniel did a phenomenal job of sharing the case studies that she’s done. She spent a lot of years, decades I think, working in health foundations and health giving and she just brought incredible examples of youth councils and examples of campaigns and how they started them. And so it was, it was an absolute treat to, to speak alongside her.

[00:53:32.65] spk_0:
Nathaniel is director of philanthropy, where at

[00:53:32.82] spk_1:
the BC Women’s Foundation

[00:53:34.75] spk_0:
Women’s hospital

[00:53:36.48] spk_1:
british Columbia, women, women’s hospital, where my son was born.

[00:53:41.35] spk_0:
And Kayla, you give it a shot for Kayla,

[00:54:30.04] spk_1:
I mean, always happy to, to to serve such an incredible institution um for those of you who don’t know, Kayla is, is fundraising um intelligence and donor management tools, built, you know, with the most powerful, exciting technology. But built by fundraisers myself, being just one of many and ultimately our goal is to help folks, you know, have a great um donor management experience, to help increase the predictability and to help nonprofits grow. They’re giving it’s a Crm, it’s an intelligence tool. It’s got beautiful and amazing forms you can pick and choose if you want crm, you want forms, you want intelligence. But ultimately it’s a it’s a technology company with the sector at its at its core and I encourage everyone to to always take a look at kayla k e l a dot com.

[00:54:37.34] spk_0:
Dot com, awesome dot com. Very good. Look

[00:54:38.81] spk_1:
at

[00:54:43.18] spk_0:
dot com. It definitely rhymes what? Almost com

[00:54:49.84] spk_1:
Alright.

[00:54:52.84] spk_0:
And he’s the ceo and founder, thank you very much for sharing your ideas.

[00:54:55.18] spk_1:
tony always a pleasure and hope to see you. Hopefully not two years from now, maybe before that.

[00:55:00.40] spk_0:
No, thank you. Well, will you be in you think you’ll be in Denver if it’s actually live?

[00:55:05.47] spk_1:
Yes, yes I will. Next.

[00:55:06.74] spk_0:
NTC 23. NTC I believe I’ll be there too. All right,

[00:55:10.81] spk_1:
wonderful. Thanks. tony

[00:56:29.54] spk_0:
my pleasure and thank you listeners for being with Non profit radio coverage of 22 NTC. Thanks so much. Next week, It’s your RFP process as our 2022 non profit technology conference coverage continues. If you missed any part of this week’s show? I beseech you find it at tony martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o And by 4th dimension technologies I T infra in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits, tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty Be with Me next week for non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for December 6, 2021: Purpose Driven Marketing

My Guest:

Stu Swineford: Purpose Driven Marketing

Stu Swineford reveals the principles and pillars of purpose driven marketing that will keep your donors engaged and wanting to support your mission. He’s co-author of the ebook, “Mission Uncomfortable.”

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:01:45.54] spk_1:
Yeah. Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with scabs if you invested me with the idea that you missed this week’s show purpose driven marketing stew. Swinford reveals the principles and pillars of purpose driven marketing that will keep your donors engaged and wanting to support your mission. He’s co author of the book, Mission uncomfortable On Tony’s take two planned giving accelerator were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o here is purpose driven marketing. Yeah, it’s my pleasure to welcome for his first time on nonprofit radio stew Swinford. He is a mountain fellow, cinephile and co founder of Relish Studio, a digital marketing firm that creates conversion focused marketing solutions for nonprofits with Aaron Rixon, he’s co author of the book mission uncomfortable how nonprofits can embrace purpose driven marketing to survive and thrive. He and the company are at relish studio and relish studio dot com. Welcome to nonprofit radios

[00:01:46.65] spk_0:
to well thank you so much for having me on today. tony

[00:02:00.34] spk_1:
pleasure pleasure. Uh we got to take care of the most obvious things first before we get to your book and purpose driven marketing. You’re a mountain fella. So I mean you live in the mountains.

[00:02:17.74] spk_0:
I do. We live up here at about 9000 ft up kind of west of Denver Netherland is kind of the closest biggest town. Um, but live in a little cabin that was built in the 40s here in the woods with my wife and our are slew of pets, which hopefully will not interrupt us today.

[00:02:22.78] spk_1:
That’s okay. We’re very family friendly on a

[00:02:25.12] spk_0:
nice family embracing,

[00:02:28.94] spk_1:
not just family friendly family embracing. So 9000 ft. So you’re so you’re one of those people who follows the uh the high altitude directions on baking?

[00:02:38.34] spk_0:
Absolutely, yeah. Okay. And those are actually mostly geared for Denver, which is about 50 400 ft. So we have to make even more adjustments usually when we’re doing things up here.

[00:02:50.44] spk_1:
And do you need special cars or special equipment on your cars to drive at that altitude?

[00:03:11.34] spk_0:
No, not really. Not really. Everything’s electronically controlled at this point, so you don’t, you don’t have to make too many adjustments. I think an older car or older motorcycles for sure you have to reach it um in order to perform well at higher altitudes, but older ones. Okay. Yeah. Are you

[00:03:17.25] spk_1:
skiing there in the mountain?

[00:03:31.84] spk_0:
Well, not currently. Uh we we don’t have, we got a little bit of snow last week, but it’s mostly gone. Um I believe a basin actually opened last week. So they are skiing up a little higher than we are located. Um And El Dora, which is the local ski area is threatening to open here toward the end of the month, but we’ll we’ll see what happens. It’s been a little bit warm.

[00:03:42.24] spk_1:
Okay, this is uh we’re recording in mid october

[00:03:46.52] spk_0:
Yes, yes. Okay. Okay.

[00:03:48.66] spk_1:
Are you a cross country skier?

[00:04:06.64] spk_0:
I do I know a Nordic ski and backcountry ski. I don’t go to the resorts all that much anymore. I used to be a big resort guy and um I used to ski about 80 days a year. Um and I I would say last year I probably got 20 or 25 days a but it was mostly back country skiing.

[00:04:09.84] spk_1:
Okay. And cinephile. Yeah, I have a favorite director genre.

[00:04:30.54] spk_0:
Well I love the Coen Brothers, they’re probably my favorite directors. Um And I used to write for film threat and I was I was a critic for a short period of time. Um And I just love watching movies and uh that’s something that I enjoy.

[00:04:32.24] spk_1:
Yeah, wonderful. You have a favorite Coen Brothers movie? That’s hard. That’s hard. It’s tough. Maybe asking you a question that I couldn’t answer

[00:05:06.74] spk_0:
myself many of their films um have something to be enjoyed. I would say my go to favorite when people ask is Miller’s Crossing, which was one of their earlier films um starring Gabriel Byrne. And uh it’s just a you know, it’s it’s a it’s a fun little movie but you know, I’ve watched the Big Lebowski. I don’t know how many times and um you know they have a great uh collection and selection of movies for people

[00:05:46.94] spk_1:
o Brother where art thou Burn after reading these are some these are something but Miller’s Crossing that with Gabriel Byrne. I’ve I’ve seen that a few times that I think I might have that one in my collection. I’m pretty discerning about which movies actually purchase physical copies of so that I can watch them when I want to, streaming services decide that they want to have them bond for six months. And I think Miller’s Crossing is in there because that that’s uh it’s an early one but he’s uh he’s a he’s a it’s an interesting gangster um gangster profile

[00:05:48.37] spk_0:
I suppose. Yeah, it’s kind of a gangster movie set in the prohibition era. Um It just has great, great dialogue and uh and it’s you know, it’s not for the whole family for sure, but but it’s definitely a good one if people haven’t checked that one out,

[00:06:03.74] spk_1:
Hudsucker proxy

[00:06:04.70] spk_0:
to great name

[00:06:08.24] spk_1:
that often. But paul newman

[00:06:10.64] spk_0:
uh tim Robbins, tim Robbins. Exactly.

[00:06:29.14] spk_1:
Yeah. The circle, it’s a circle for kids. It’s for kids, you know, circle, you know kids so alright, so coen brothers fans, you will get that, you’ll get that reference if not you can watch the Hudsucker proxy and uh and you’ll get it all right. Um So purpose driven marketing, why don’t we just define this thing. What is this first?

[00:08:35.64] spk_0:
Well purpose driven marketing in our minds is here it relishes um is really marketing that has a goal in mind. And then also we really try to work with purpose focused leaders who have something bigger than just making money in mind for their organization. So whether they’re a 1% for the planet partner or a nonprofit or a B corp um, those are the kinds of people that we really like to work with and, and uh, you know, I sort of, I guess I grew into this over the years, uh, At relish. We started in 2008 and in about 2013, my business partner and I started thinking, Wow, you know, we’re, we have this opportunity as entrepreneurs and business owners to, to really create something different than just uh, an organization or a business that that is here to make money. We can actually kind of mold this in, in our own fashion. And so we started looking for ways to create some giving back here at relish and that was when we joined 1% of the Planet Colorado Outdoor business alliance organizations like that, that colorado non profit association that enabled us to, to start to kind of codify or, or formalize are giving back as well as, you know, really meet and um, and be able to serve those people who are doing a lot more in the world than just, you know, funding, uh, the owners next vacation home or yacht or something like that. Um, in terms of, of conversion focus. However, you know, that’s another piece of the purpose component um, is really making sure that people’s marketing is aligned with a goal and that we’re helping them achieve that goal. So it’s, it’s just a thoughtful way of approaching the whole marketing space um where it becomes, you know, something that you’re investing in. Um it’s not just an expense, it’s something that’s actually creating a return on that investment. Mhm.

[00:08:41.24] spk_1:
And you, you focus a lot on building relationships through purpose driven marketing. How, just as an overview, we’re going to get to that, we’re gonna get to your four pillars, but how do you see purpose driven marketing contributing to relationship building?

[00:10:11.74] spk_0:
Well, we look at marketing is really, that’s all marketing is, is building relationships and really, instead of attempting to sell all the time, um, we see marketing that works as as an opportunity to create a relationship, to build a connection as opposed to just trying to sell something. Um You know, usually in in any kind of transactional relationship, um you have to get to know the person trust like them. Um and then move on to kind of being able to try and, and by and then hopefully people move into the kind of this repeat and refer proportion of their, of their life cycle. Um But ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s all about creating this atmosphere where people, um not only know who you are, but but really get to like you and to trust you in order to uh take that next step, which is to try and to buy your services or your, you know, your organization’s um, uh, benefits that they’re bringing, that you’re bringing to the, to the marketplace and to the nonprofit space in particular. Um, and so that’s that’s kind of how we see marketing is is just really creating opportunities to build upon um interactions and create a really strong, solid relationship with people.

[00:10:27.84] spk_1:
And you take time to, hey, make sure people are not thinking of marketing as a pejorative, you know, that it’s that it’s I don’t know that you use the way, I don’t think you use the word sales. E but you know, you uh you’re you’re making sure people are, are looking at marketing the way you and Aaron are, and not the way, you know, an amazon looks at looks at marketing.

[00:10:44.44] spk_0:
Well, it’s interesting even in the amazon space, but the short answer is yes. But even in the amazon space, they’re trying to create opportunities for um for relationship building. So there is there are some

[00:10:56.86] spk_1:
lessons to be learned from

[00:12:06.84] spk_0:
the Yeah. And that’s how we just kind of see marketing. So whether that’s selling a widget where you have to convince somebody that this is a durable, um, you know, tool that will solve whatever problem it is that they’re trying to solve. Um, you’re you’re always trying to build a relationship there. You’re always trying to create an opportunity for somebody to get to, to know that company, um, understand why they’re doing things and uh, I believe that that this transaction is going to result in a positive, um, outcome. And, and whether that’s a long term kind of approach where you are trying to convince a donor to give, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars to your organization or a very short term relationship where you’re just trying to convince somebody to, I don’t know, buy a soda because they’re thirsty. Um, you know, it is all about creating that, uh, ability and opportunity to, um, for, for people to start to know like, and trust you in that in that connect and um, and convert face of the, of the scenario.

[00:12:33.14] spk_1:
Yeah. Know like, and trust Trust is when you can build trust with folks and uh, then, uh, there are so much more likely to open your, open your messages, uh, follow your calls to action, you know, when there’s trust with the brand and the work, that’s uh, that’s a pinnacle in a relationship.

[00:13:00.84] spk_0:
Yeah. And ultimately relationships are built through interactions over some period of time. And so whether those interactions are, you know, commercials that are aired, um, or emails that are sent and uh, questions that are answered. Um, or even, you know, social media outreach and uh, back and forth when you can create when you can create that interaction, when you can create that, that back and forth, that then solidifies and builds and strengthens strengthens that relationship. And so those are the kinds of things that we help our clients and partners facilitate through marketing.

[00:13:21.94] spk_1:
It’s interesting the back and forth, not just the one way, you know, messages going from us to those, we’re trying to build trust with

[00:13:27.91] spk_0:
a little more

[00:13:29.10] spk_1:
about how it’s how it’s two way communication, not not one way.

[00:15:02.54] spk_0:
Yeah, so that’s actually one of the things we see people, one of the bigger mistakes people make in the social media space is that they use social media as kind of a soap box where they get on and they present their, you know, whatever whatever it is of the day, whether it’s a sales pitch or even a an item of value, but they fail to try to build those relationships. Um and you know, social media is at its core a social component which requires back and forth, which requires um you know, companies and their, you know, they’re the people who are working with them to go out and and create opportunities to start those conversations on social media. So instead of simply going to your particular platform and posting something, um you know, really one needs to be out there um interacting and and commenting and posting on other people’s materials as well as posting on on your own materials and answering questions. Um google reviews is actually a great, another great example of a place where people have an opportunity to create a back and forth, whether that’s a positive review or a negative review that someone is left about your organization. Um, you know, making sure that you answer that and even try to create, you know, opportunities for back and forth. So ask open ended questions. Um, you know, comment on how beautiful that photo was on instagram and then ask them a question about what inspired them to take that or what camera settings they used or you know, whatever the whatever the the thing is that inspires those conversations and and gets people going back and forth, that tends to create those opportunities to build a relationship.

[00:17:41.34] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications, content creation, content is king. The medium is the message birds of a feather, flock together. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. So well the first two of those apply, we don’t, we don’t need the birds and the apples, but content content if you need content in the coming year, for for what? For digital, for print for an annual report for some other report to the board content. If you need content for your social channels, they can do all this turn to, they’ll help you hone your messaging. And as far as press, get your messages out in the channels that you’ve heard me talk about like Chronicle of philanthropy new york times, Washington post Detroit, free press etcetera cbs market watch. So content. If you need content for whatever purpose, think about turn to you need help get this off your plate there. The pros they write it, they’ll, they’ll get it off your shoulders because your story, is there mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. Now, back to purpose driven marketing. Okay. In that spirit, the reason I was attracted to you reached out to you to be a guest is you posted something interesting on linkedin. So I looked a little further in linkedin and you had a phone number that folks could pick up and say, you know, if you want to chat, reach, reach me here, uh, let me chat with the guy, I’m gonna pick up. Sorry, uh, like five minutes after I had read your post and did a little research, I said, I’m gonna talk to the guy. So you created an opportunity for people to reach you. Uh, uh, you know, and I grabbed it and I thought, first of all, it’s very unusual for someone to put a phone number and it didn’t go to google mail. It was your voicemail or google voice. I should say. It was your it was your it was your voicemail. And uh, you know, you called me back and we chatted. So you’re you’re you’re walking, you’re walking your

[00:17:51.84] spk_0:
walk. Well, I hope so. You’re walking your talk, I guess. I hope so. That’s one of the challenges of, of running uh running a marketing agency as we have the cobbler’s kids challenge a lot of the time where we we can do a really good job for our clients. But we tend to uh neglect our own outreach in our own websites and those types of things. I’m happy that that that that actually worked. Um we’ll do this. So yeah, it was great. I’m curious. Which do you remember which post it was that that you found compelling?

[00:18:24.54] spk_1:
No, it was too long ago. Okay. No, it was over a month ago that we first connected. I don’t know if it was about your book, but was it could have been the release. Had your book just come out recently or No,

[00:18:32.95] spk_0:
the book dropped in uh february last. All right

[00:18:48.74] spk_1:
then. I knew you had when I well, I knew you had written a book when I called you because I left you a message saying I’d like to have you on the show and talk about the book. Um I don’t remember. I don’t know. It’s

[00:18:50.19] spk_0:
okay. I was just curious to know if you if you remember what what thing I said that that made you want to pick up the phone. There was you know,

[00:19:14.64] spk_1:
you you know, I think you might have commented on something that I commented on to. Uh and so obviously I appreciated your comment. I think I think it was that I think it was a comment not a post of yours because you weren’t weren’t connected. So I wouldn’t have seen your. Yeah, I think it was I think you commented on something that I commented on.

[00:19:54.94] spk_0:
So so there’s a really great example of of how that relationship building peace can actually function to create another relationship opportunity. Um where you know, if if I were just using my, you know, linkedin platform to to espouse information and hopefully give some value driven stuff you and I never would have actually or it would have been less likely for us to have connected because uh what it took was me going out to someone else’s post and commenting about giving them some more information or saying nice post or whatever it was that I said um that they gave you got me in front of you. So um that’s a really good example of how one can can leverage that power of social media to to expand their network.

[00:20:07.37] spk_1:
It works so be social

[00:20:15.94] spk_0:
exact conversation. It is socially, it’s all about creating conversations. Yes. Let’s

[00:20:16.73] spk_1:
talk about your four pillars of of purpose driven marketing. Why don’t you just give us an overview and then uh and then let’s go in and I, you know, I got some things I want to talk about for each one but

[00:20:28.29] spk_0:
acquaintance

[00:20:29.42] spk_1:
with them first.

[00:23:23.94] spk_0:
Sure. So the four pillars as we see them in in terms of kind of this this client or customer lifecycle um is really starts with attraction. And that’s how do you get people to come to your properties, whether those are your social properties or your website or your storefront, How do you get out there in the marketplace and uh, and enable people to find you? And then we move to the bond phase, which is really the, the next step of that conversation where you’re not only have you brought people in. So you’ve, you’ve created an opportunity for them to find out about you, but now you’re creating this opportunity for them to actually get into the fold to, um, to kind of be part of your inner network. And um, and the connection phase a lot of times requires um, either a value exchange of some, some sort of information. Um, you know, what we’re really trying to do is help build those relationships and help not only, you know, take these people who have now found you and enable them to uh, to have an ongoing relationship, an ongoing conversation created. Um, so that’s kind of that bond phase and then the next phase is kind of this convert phase. And that would be the sails easiest part of this uh kind of system where essentially this is where we get people to either try or buy from you and in the nonprofit space, this would be, you know, getting someone to either, um, you know, really take advantage of something that you’re offering. So if you think about the nonprofit stakeholders, typically there are donors, there are volunteers, There are actual um, recipients of the of the nonprofits benefits. And then, um, you know, there could be kind of sponsors and and people in that frame as well. So how do we get those people to actually take some sort of an action either make a donation, volunteer, some of their time, etcetera. And then in the final phase, which is kind of this inspire phase, um, that’s where we’re trying to get people to either escalate their engagement. So you take a one time donor and get them to become a, you know, a monthly donor. You get someone who perhaps is a monthly donor or maybe as a one time donor and get them to bring their their business in as a corporate sponsor. Um, you get someone to escalate um, and repeat. And then also evangelize for your organization and get out there and really refer you, uh tell people that they should be a part of this organization as well, um or um, or even just shouting it out on social media about, you know, some great volunteer experience that you had. So those are kind of the main four pillars. And again, kind of heard me talk about them in a different framework earlier where, you know, we’re really trying to get people to um, to know like trust tribe. I repeat and refer those are kind of the seven components of those four pillars. Okay,

[00:23:49.64] spk_1:
so before we dive into each of these, these four, but let’s let folks know how they can get your, your ebook mission uncomfortable.

[00:23:52.67] spk_0:
Sure they can, they can download it online. It’s, I decided to not publish it in a printed format at least this current time trying to save some trees. Um, but it is available at mission uncomfortable book dot com.

[00:24:19.54] spk_1:
Okay. And we’ll make sure we, I say that again at the end. So so attract connect bond, inspire when, when we’re, when we’re doing attraction, we’re attracting folks. You talk a lot you and Aaron talk a lot about personas, you’d like to rely on those, explain the value of how they work, what their value

[00:25:50.84] spk_0:
is. Yeah. So persona is, it can also be called an avatar. It’s essentially an ideal audience. So when you start to think about who you’re trying to attract to your organization. Um one of the first things we recommend doing is really doing some exploration in terms of personas and and really getting an understanding of the motivations for your target audience groups, um, what their demographics might look like. Um, you know, what, what makes them tick and why would they want to come. Uh, and, and uh, you know, connect with and participate with your organization. And so when you think of all, there’s usually more than one persona. Um, you know, a volunteer might be a completely different person than a donor for example. Um and and then a recipient of your of your benefits, would you know, potentially be even even different persona. Um So build what you can do is build out as many of these as you think you need to in order to get a feel for who it is that you’re kind of trying to reach a lot of times when we build out personas for our clients and partners, we really create a visual um you know, person that people can wrap their arms around. We name them, we find a stock photo that’s representative of representative of that person. You

[00:25:59.33] spk_1:
go to photos even I’ve heard of naming, giving, giving them names, but you go to photos.

[00:27:58.94] spk_0:
Yeah. Picture somebody. Okay. Yeah. Trying to create as much of uh of something that you can wrap your arms around when you’re talking about this audience group. Um and you know, I would say don’t go overboard, don’t try to overthink it to start because you know, you can get kind of in the weeds with persona development where All of a sudden you have 15 different personas that you’re trying to to reach and it just becomes confusing. So one of the things that we would recommend is just starting simple and just think about, who you know, if you were thinking of an ideal volunteer, just one of them and we know that there are many who would that person be um you know, would they be uh woman between the ages of 35 42 who has um, had a career and now has, you know, maybe has a little bit more free time in that career or perhaps even works for a company that offers uh, you know, matching for volunteer opportunities. Um, does she have Children? Is she married? Does, what does she, what does she look like? Who is this person? And you know, maybe her name is Jill and you can just really start to talk about and think about who Jill is when you are planning your marketing outreach. So does she play and find information and spend a lot of time on facebook or is she more on instagram? Is she out? Um, you know, in certain places in the local community where you can can reach her farmers markets for example, or um, you know, or perhaps other types of, of events where where would you need to go to run into and connect with uh, with Jill and get her to understand who you are and a tractor to your organization. And so it really that persona development really helps you map out your marketing strategy so that you’re not spending a bunch of time trying to attract, you know, boomers by posting on Tiktok.

[00:28:30.34] spk_1:
And when you’ve so identified the the folks that you want to connect with, that, that’s what the purpose of the personas is your identifying different different categories of people you’re trying to to connect with and you, you want to focus on delivering some content for them to connect with. And you have lots of examples of blogs and social networks and podcasts and white papers, etcetera. Talk about, you know, matching the content I guess with with with for your personas.

[00:29:48.04] spk_0:
Yeah. So when we talk about content, we really start with trying to create value exchange here. So this is actually the first transactional piece of the transactional relationship that you’re that you’re attempting to build. Um, the end goal may be to get uh, you know, a donation or get somebody to exchange their time to volunteer with you, which is something of value. But at the onset, um, it’s really about getting into this kind of try um, trust and try phase um, there’s a little bit of the like phase in there as well, but at this point they know who you are now. You’re really trying to get them to like trust and try your organization. So in this phase of the relationship, um, you know, coming up with things that might be beneficial to this person. So for example, um, Leave No Trace is a, is a nonprofit organization that is trying to get people to have a better understanding of how they can interact with our open spaces and natural places more effectively. One of the things that I’ve seen from them in the past are are these great cards that have the leave no trace principles. And and so they’re right there handy. You can have them attached to your pack or in your pocket um that that really give people

[00:30:16.38] spk_1:
presumably you don’t you don’t leave these cards behind at your

[00:30:18.88] spk_0:
campsite. Yes, exactly. These come with you uh the

[00:30:21.61] spk_1:
letter with the card.

[00:31:32.24] spk_0:
Yeah, Yeah, but but a, you know, a convert phase, you know, kind of opportunity here might be um either an online version of that card. So people could give, you know, give them their email in order to get this card, get access to this information or even uh, you know, provide your address and they might send you on. I don’t know exactly what leave no trace is doing with these these types of informational items. But that might be uh, you know, a tactic that they could use to get people to feel like there had been a value exchange and just to continue building that relationship and and essentially convert them from a stranger to. Now there’s somebody that you kind of know, um you have some information about them. Uh Now you can actually ask them questions through email. You can ask them to donate. You can ask them, you can, you can escalate that relationship by giving them other items of value. Um that’s where that connect phase comes into play. That then you kind of escalate that uh, into the, into the bond face.

[00:31:39.84] spk_1:
Yeah. All right. so let’s let’s spend a little time with with connecting, you talk

[00:31:40.60] spk_0:
about the I’m sorry, Bond Bond comes first and then the connect

[00:31:44.98] spk_1:
so, you know, in the book, you have a track and then

[00:31:48.57] spk_0:
yes, you’re right, I apologize. Yeah, I got it, I got it all confused. My own,

[00:31:55.75] spk_1:
you are a co author of the

[00:31:56.91] spk_0:
book, right? I am Aaron,

[00:32:03.64] spk_1:
you’re not a ghost writer to the I mean he’s not your ghostwriter? No, you actually did contribute. Okay, so, we can wrap it up right now, if you’re not bona fide, you know, then that’s the end. No,

[00:32:10.31] spk_0:
your bona fide. Okay, so

[00:32:17.14] spk_1:
yeah, so connect um you talked about the consistency principle uh that people like to as you’re connecting to get people to say yes or taken action, say a little about that, I like that consistency principle. Can you define that for me?

[00:34:50.14] spk_0:
Yeah, so the consistency principle is really getting opportunities to to make sure that you’re being um intentional and consistent in your outreach. Um one of the things that we find people do is they tend to go in sprints and they’ll get really excited about about building a relationship or or creating opportunities for outreach and then they’ll do it for a little while and then they’ll drop off for for months at a time and um you know, essentially creating an intention and creating a commitment to uh to outreach and to these activities and then sticking with that is something that we we talk a lot about one of the things that people tend to do is they set their goals too high and they say, okay, I’m gonna, I’m getting all excited about this, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do a blog post a day and uh and then they look at that that goal that they’ve set and they say, I can’t do this and we have this tendency, people have this tendency to think that That missing a goal is a total failure as opposed to, you know, you got part of the way there. Um and so what tends to happen is if we set a great big goal and then we start missing that goal, we think, okay, well, I might as well do nothing because, you know, zero is as big a failure as 75%. So one of the things in terms of goal setting that we really recommend is starting slow, creating an opportunity to create a smart goal, something that you can actually achieve. Um and uh and and start to feel what a wind looks like and then, you know, as you’ve built that consistency, go ahead and elevate that goal a little bit as you as as you get better at it. So I’d much rather see uh one of our clients, um, you know, set a goal of of one blog post a month, if they’re not doing any, let’s do one a month, get good at that until that feels easy. And then then we can talk about doing two a month or, or one a week or even, you know, a couple, a couple of week. Um, but what tends to happen is people get really excited about things and say, I’m gonna, I’m gonna knock this out of the park and then they don’t, they haven’t built those consistency, um, habits and so things kind of fall by the wayside and then they end up doing nothing. But

[00:36:48.53] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two planned giving accelerator. I’m recruiting for the january class right now. If you’d like to join me, like to learn together step by step how to launch planned giving at your non profit planned giving accelerator dot com has all the information that you need. Of course, you could be in touch with me through the site, ask any questions you might have. The course is six months, you’ll spend an hour a week learning how to launch your planned giving program and not only learning from me, learning from your classmates, the other members who are in your class with you. The peer to peer support is phenomenal. The way folks open up, they ask questions about challenges. They’ve got, you know, I haven’t tried everything. So we, it’s open to the, to the class to help each other. I mean, I’ve got my ideas, but everybody’s got theirs too. And you get that peer support, One member says she calls it her safety net playing giving accelerator. So if you’re not doing planned giving or if you have like a more abundant plant giving program, which is really no program, you know, deep down, if you admit that there’s really just not a program. If you want to take a look at plan giving accelerator, I’ll get you going launch your program and grow it between me and your peers. It’s all at planned giving accelerator dot com. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for purpose driven marketing and what’s happening in our relationship as we’re, we’ve moved from a trac to connect what’s happening there.

[00:38:28.22] spk_0:
Yeah. So in that in that attract phase, you’re essentially hanging your, your sign out and saying, hey, we exist, come check this out. And, and then in the connect phase you’re really trying to provide valuable information that enables people to, um, to take an action that gets them kind of deeper into the fold. So that’s one thing about email. People think for example, and particularly the nonprofit space email is an amazing tool. Um, yes, we all get a ton of junk email on a daily basis. And we also get a lot of non junk email but depending upon who your audience is and for non profits a lot of times that audience, particularly in the donor seat are kind of these people in the boomer, um age range, that demographic really still does rely very heavily on email. It’s kind of one of their chief modes of communication. Um They email is one of these places that feels like you have some control over it, you can kind of choose to read it or not read it, you can unsubscribe if you if you would like. So there’s a little bit more of a feeling of control with email and then also um this is a place where people have actually raised their hand. So it’s not just social media where you know maybe you got into somebody’s feed through some algorithm or or magically or got referred in, there’s a sense of people have actually taken an action. So that’s why we find list building and trying to create that connection and trying to get people into your um your your email list is a really valuable um component of this kind of four pillar system.

[00:38:45.72] spk_1:
And then bonding

[00:40:07.11] spk_0:
is next. Yeah bonding is really where your solidifying that relationship and you’re providing ongoing. Again, consistency is key here, ongoing opportunities for value driven uh exchange uh systems within the within the bond phase. So um we talked a little bit about this earlier in terms of creating opportunities to um to share information to share physical items to uh you know to provide people with solutions to their problems and in the nonprofit space this gets a little um a little I guess nebulous, it’s a little hard to figure out how uh to create these types of value exchange opportunities, but this is where mhm there are a few things that go into come into play here. One is if you can create an opportunity to position your nonprofit as kind of the guide in this story where your constituent your donor, your volunteer, even even the people that the beneficiaries are the heroes of the story and you’re just facilitating this opportunity for somebody for a donor to be the hero in this beneficiaries story that then creates this kind of experience in our minds where we we start to see ourselves as the as that hero and um and really feel compelled to continue uh kind of serving that role in that in that kind of relationship.

[00:40:57.51] spk_1:
You have a tip in the book. I think it’s mostly related. Well, no, not not necessarily to websites, but I’ll use the website example you say if some if you pre ask someone, if they want something, you get them to sit and they say yes, then at the next step they’ll be more likely to do the thing that you actually want them to do because they said you sort of you got them in the habit even though it was only one step, one step removed. You got them in the habit of saying yes, so they’re more likely to do the real thing that you want. Can you flesh that out a little bit? It was an interesting yeah strategy.

[00:41:10.11] spk_0:
It seems counterintuitive. I think that most people who have studied marketing have heard they reduce the number of clicks to purchase for example,

[00:41:13.22] spk_1:
don’t yeah, it’s possible.

[00:43:20.10] spk_0:
Yeah. And and this is where I would encourage nonprofits to try different things. But um the example that we believe I used in the book um was essentially instead of giving people a form to fill out immediately, give them a yet an actual action to take. So if you say would you like more information instead of just having, you know, this is an example instead of just having a form there where I put in my name and my email address and click, click yes, go ahead and say would you like more information? Yes, no and when people click yes, then it takes them to a page with the form on it and again it’s a little counterintuitive but the conversion rate on that form if you, if you put it behind that yes, no kind of gate yeah, it can actually be higher than the conversion if you just put the form out in front. Um there’s a interesting psychological thing that happens and one of my coaches, his name is Townsend Wardlaw. He’s a really great guy. Um he always asks per michigan before providing any sort of information. So for example tony if I had just sent you my book out of the blue without you asking for it. The likelihood that you would have done anything with that would be a much lower than if if I said, hey, would you like my book and you say yes and then I say okay and I’ll send it to you. Um, similarly Townsend always says ask permission, you know, would you like, would you like my help with that? Would you like me to share that with you? Um, you know, I have a story that I can tell about this, would you like to hear it? And, and that’s priming the pump for you to say no, I’m not interested. Which saves us both a bunch of time because now you don’t have to listen to me ramble on about a story that you weren’t interested in. And it also primes that pump for, for you to be even more receptive to the story once it’s once it’s delivered. So it works in, you know, not only in just marketing, but even in just conversational um, interactions.

[00:43:43.80] spk_1:
I’ve had folks talking about permission based soliciting for, for gifts, you know, in a couple of days, could I be in touch with you about investing in whatever you know, the work or the program that’s there of interest to them could be in touch, you know, in a few days on that. Yeah. Ask their permission. Exactly exactly in line with what you’re saying, you know? Yeah, that’s their permission and then be in touch in a couple of

[00:44:42.89] spk_0:
days assuming they said yes. Yeah. That’s, and actually a really great kind of cold call, um, tactic where instead of, you know, cold calls are very disruptive. So in the sales in the sale space. So for any executive directors out there, who are, who are, you know, soliciting donations from, from either, you know, big big corporations or, or, you know, seeking to get larger donors into the fold. One of the things that is more effective is to acknowledge that this call has been disruptive and try and get something on the calendar as opposed to trying to pitch them in that moment. And so similar, similar thing. You know, can I, can we, can we talk on Tuesday at, at three? Um, instead of saying, well, I’ll just jump right into the, to this thing that you didn’t actually ask me to pitch.

[00:44:47.87] spk_1:
Yeah. And you didn’t know what’s coming. Yeah, permission based I guess. I think Seth Godin has been talking about permission based marketing for years and it’s pervaded other areas. Yeah,

[00:45:00.35] spk_0:
absolutely.

[00:45:06.79] spk_1:
Yeah. Well, you know, why not? And you’re right. If the person says no, then you’re saving both of you the anguish of going through a, going through an exercise that neither one of you, it’s gonna be fruitless for one of you and the other person isn’t the least bit interested. So yeah. You want to do something that’s an interesting and fruitless.

[00:45:34.89] spk_0:
Yeah. And you’ve also created, you’ve created an exchange. Um, in terms of a back and forth. And so that’s, you know, that works as a um, you know, there’s a conversation that’s happened there. You listened. So you, you know, it positions you just a lot differently.

[00:45:37.12] spk_1:
You listened and you honored the person’s choice. So I I called you here. I am calling Tuesday at at four o’clock. Yeah. Alright. We’re inspiring. Next to

[00:48:12.27] spk_0:
separation inspiring. So yeah, after after this bond phase where you’ve actually gotten somebody to become a volunteer or make a donation or um, yeah, get get on your list of corporate sponsors or something like that from, from a non profit standpoint. Um The inspire phase is really where we’re attempting to get people to take another action. So um, there’s an old again kind of sales adage that it’s much easier to sell to someone who’s already purchased from you than it is to sell to somebody new. Um We tend to get really excited about new relationships and new sales tend to be the thing that get people excited. How many new donors did you bring in um, last year? You know, those, those types of things get get pretty exciting. However, it’s a lot easier lift to get somebody to donate again than it is to get to somebody to donate for the first time. So in the inspire phase, uh, you know, let’s just use donors again as an example. Um We’re really trying to get people to repeat and refer. Um, so get people to become a regular donor. Um, get people to donate again. Um, you know, thinking about escalation here and and again, if you think about your, um, you’re different kind of audience types and I do some volunteer work with volunteers for outdoor colorado and they’re a great organization here in state that does a lot of trail building and advocacy, uh, for kind of outdoor spaces. And I believe the first interaction that I had with their organization was as a volunteer. And so I decided I wanted to volunteer on a project and then I became a donor. Um, so essentially they gave me opportunities to, they inspired me. Um, you know, through not only all of the fun things that we were able to do during our, our, uh, our day of digging in the dirt. Um, but also, uh, you know, just just through all of the great things that they’re doing around the state, um, inspired me to become a donor and then inspired me to take an additional volunteer step to become a crew leader. And so essentially they’re doing a really good job of kind of escalating that engagement um, through this inspire phase. They also, um, you know, encourage all of their volunteers and all of their donors to share, uh, share their stories to, uh, spread the word about their organization. So that’s that kind of refer phase. So, you know, really

[00:48:30.47] spk_1:
like you’re doing right this moment.

[00:49:22.77] spk_0:
Exactly, yep, yep. Using them as an example of, of a great organization. Um, so that’s what, that, uh, you know, that’s where that kind of inspire phase comes into play. You know, getting people to evangelize about your organization, Getting people to, to, you know, share stories to come back to move from, you know, just giving you $10 at some events to giving you, you know, $10 per month. Um, so, you know, just getting really creative and staying in touch with people. That’s the thing that tends to happen is, um, you know, people fall off on the, on those activities because they’re, they are a little less, um, exciting than bringing a new donor into the fold. Um, but you know, really making sure that you have a referral program, you have something to get people to leave reviews, you get something, um, for people to share their stories and have a campaign associated with that, that keeps people keeps you at top of mind and then keeps people kind of coming back for more.

[00:49:54.57] spk_1:
You make the point of thinking about this as investment, not expense, not to look at the cost of a new cost of a donor acquired or cost of sale or something like that, but as an investment in the organization. And, and, and these relationships,

[00:51:17.76] spk_0:
we hear a lot in the nonprofit space would, particularly when it bumps up against marketing that any dollar that I spend that isn’t spent directly toward the core mission is a dollar taken away from that core mission. And we’d like for people to approach marketing for non profits a little differently where they see non they see their marketing uh, as an as an investment in that core message and an opportunity to expand and um amplify that message so that it becomes, it enables them to reach even more people. Um, and so that slight mindset shift can be really important when one starts to undertake marketing endeavors because, you know, it is money being, um, you know, coming out of the out of the program, but really making sure that you have to have a plan, you have goals, that they are reasonable, that you’re measuring that you’re tracking that you’re actually looking at this expense, um or this investment as uh, as something that’s going to grow your mission and and just keeping tabs on that and and making sure that you have those systems in place so that, you know that the, you know, whatever money you invested in marketing um, is creating a return on that investment.

[00:51:49.96] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah. Please get past this insidious myth. That myth of overhead, you know that marketing is overhead and technology is overhead needless, you know, these are investments in your future. You and I are talking about investments in relationships, relationships are only going to grow and as as folks refer, you talked about repeat giving and referring as folks refer you, the relationships are going to expand beyond what you can imagine, but it takes investment. So

[00:52:11.65] spk_0:
yeah, that’s why why having a system in place is so important and and that’s what, that’s one of the reasons I wrote Mission uncomfortable was to enable people to have some kind of understanding of a system in place for their marketing so that they could feel more empowered with that investment and and more comfortable with that investment that they’re making in in their outreach.

[00:52:19.05] spk_1:
That’s the perfect place to leave. It’s too

[00:52:21.05] spk_0:
well, thank you so much for having me on the show. Absolutely my pleasure.

[00:52:43.05] spk_1:
The book is mission uncomfortable. How nonprofits can embrace purpose driven marketing to survive and thrive. You get it at mission uncomfortable Book dot com stew Schweinfurt. The studio is the practices relish studio and he and the company are at relish studio and relish studio dot com. So all right now, I’ve just said the word relish 35 times in the past two sentences. Why is it relish Studio

[00:53:01.75] spk_0:
Relish Studio came about as a kind of a play on words where this is something that is that little extra spice on top that makes things extra good as well as something that we love to do. So you know, one of the things that really inspires me to work with nonprofit leaders is um just, it’s really easy to get out of bed in the morning and and work with these types of clients because we know that everybody’s out there trying to make the world a better place.

[00:53:28.45] spk_1:
That’s cool. It’s a great double play. Relish the condiment Condiment studio. Alright. Relish studio dot com stew. Thank you again. Thanks very much.

[00:53:36.77] spk_0:
Thanks for having me on

[00:54:20.45] spk_1:
my pleasure. Next week is a social enterprise for you. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty be with me next week for nonprofit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for October 11, 2021: Next Year’s Plan For Your Year-End Donors

My Guest:

Poonam Prasad: Next Year’s Plan For Your Year-End Donors

We’re in the 4th quarter and you’re expecting a lot of fundraising revenue. You want those donors with you next year and beyond. Poonam Prasad has the strategies to make that happen. She’s president of Prasad Consulting & Research.

 

 

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Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:00:10.84] spk_4:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio

[00:01:41.44] spk_1:
Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast and oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of Ruba malaria if you made me hot with the idea that you missed this week’s show next year’s plan for your year end donors. We’re in the fourth quarter and you’re expecting a lot of fundraising revenue. You want those donors with you next year and beyond. non Prasad has the strategies to make that happen. She’s president of Prasad consulting and research on tony state too planned giving accelerator. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. It’s a pleasure to welcome to the show for the first time Hunan Prasad. She is founder and president of Prasad consulting and research, providing board and staff training, audit, major gift capital campaign and publication services to non profits. She’s on the executive committee of the Giving institute, leading consultants to nonprofits before nonprofit work. She was an investigative reporter and worked in journalism, advertising and pr in India south Korea Hong kong the West Indies and the U. S. Her company is at Prasad consulting dot com and she’s at prasad c Welcome to the show. Prasad opponent. Prasad. Welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:01:53.44] spk_0:
Thank you Tony. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

[00:02:02.54] spk_1:
My pleasure to have you. Thank you. There’s so many so many facades. I guys called um facade instead of being um so you’re in you’re in new york city, right? You’re coming

[00:02:05.65] spk_0:
to us from new york? Yes. Coming to you from downtown Manhattan

[00:02:09.30] spk_1:
downtown. What neighborhood?

[00:02:11.54] spk_0:
Oh, east mid down. Sorry.

[00:02:13.84] spk_1:
Oh, now you moved in downtown anymore.

[00:02:16.17] spk_0:
Yes. Now we moved, we moved recently near Grand Central Station.

[00:02:20.74] spk_1:
Okay. And your Grand Central. And how about your home? Where where, where is your home?

[00:02:24.55] spk_0:
Also in midtown,

[00:02:26.08] spk_1:
midtown, midtown east. Also,

[00:02:28.39] spk_0:
midtown east. Also. Okay,

[00:03:06.04] spk_1:
East side of new york city. For your business and your home. Wonderful. So we’re talking about this year’s fourth quarter donors and how we want to treat them and work with them So that we hold on to them into 2022 and beyond. So just, you know, because we know the donor attrition is a big problem. It’s a appalling somewhere around 75% annual donor attrition rate. What do you see? You know, generally that, uh, nonprofits could do better about holding on to their year end donors

[00:06:17.64] spk_0:
actually, tony uh, the attrition rate or the leaky bucket is almost, uh, from three donors, you get down to 1.5 or from two donors, you could be down to one next year. So for all the efforts that you’re putting in to bringing these donors in. If you think about, you know, we were a research firm. So we often get people asking us, can you find me new donors? Can you find me new donors? I’m sure we can find them new donors. But the point is, once they’ve got them in, they have spent so much effort and time and money on getting them in. And then if you don’t steward them, if you don’t get to know them and you don’t work with them, then you’re going to lose them by next year. Um, and that’s the tragedy of uh, fundraising. You know, that is really very inefficient. So I suggest only just two little tips, the donors that you get in at the end of the year. There are only two things you need to do with them. one is get to know them. And then the 2nd 1 help them to get to know you. So show them that you are doing the right thing with their money. You know, the impact report reporting, telling them what you did with their money and how you could not have done it without their money. And the second thing learn about them. You know, if you were trying to become friends with someone, you went to a party and you met somebody and you said, you know, this was a really interesting person. Uh, they came to my birthday party, they gave me a present. I would like to be more friends with them. Would you not write them or thank you not? Would you not invite them to a body afterwards. Would you not say it? Let me have coffee with you. These are simple things that we do in everyday life. But then when you’re the executive director of a of a charity, a little social service charity, you said, I don’t like to do fundraising? Well, it’s not it’s human relations. These are people who gave you something they didn’t have to give you. They could have bought a boat, they could have bought a car, they could have bought a dress, they could have bought a rug for their living room. No, they gave that money to you. Shouldn’t you be grateful? Don’t we tell our Children you get a thank you gift for Aunt Mabel. You never met Aunt Mabel writer. Thank you. Not sit down here and right, right, and a thank you note, she sent you this gift. It’s simple. It’s it’s it’s not it’s not it doesn’t even have to be about fundraising. Yes. A lot of small agencies don’t have fundraisers, don’t have dedicated development people, but this is not even about development, This is about standard manners, you know, standard courtesies, things that we grew up with. But when it becomes, oh my goodness, it’s my donors. I don’t like doing this. I’m afraid to ask them for more. You know, just thank them first before you think about asking them for more, you know, and don’t wait too long to figure it out. You know, have the plan now, you’re getting the money in 40% of the money is going to come between October and November and December, that means it’s coming in now, October. You know, and in December you’re gonna get 20% of your money. So what is your plan for January? What is it that you’re gonna do?

[00:07:17.04] spk_1:
Okay, well, we’re gonna we’re gonna get there, we’re gonna get there. Hold on. Um So you made a couple of things, points that I want to amplify about it. Just being a matter of common courtesy in in a lot of respects, and it being about relationship building. All right. So, you’ve got, you know, in in in corporate marketing, there’s the idea of get a finger grab a hand. You know, someone walked into a Starbucks, they bought a coffee. Well, Starbucks doesn’t only sell coffee. They sell music, they sell food, they sell coffee accessories, they sell a tire, right? But not to mention they sell an environment. Uh, so I think there’s a lot we can learn from that. You know, get a finger grab a hand. So someone, let’s let’s take the donor that’s made their first gift, Right? Because that’s the tougher one. That’s the that’s the easiest one to lose

[00:07:20.79] spk_0:
that 1st 1st. That’s the that’s the most fragile relationship,

[00:07:56.14] spk_1:
right? So, we’re gonna start with that. I’m giving you the toughest hypothetical, right? So, all right. So we’ve got a bunch of first time donors, we had a very successful fourth quarter in donor acquisition. We brought in a good number. What however good number is defined by My listeners. That could be 12. It could be 1200. It could be 12,000. We’ve got a bunch of new first time donors. You started to allude to, you know, what’s your plan? What’s your plan for january? What’s your first recommendation for? What we’re gonna do with this, this nice rich cadre of first time donors?

[00:07:59.40] spk_0:
Well, my first recommendation is of course they didn’t within 48 hours to get a tax

[00:08:03.07] spk_1:
receipt. If it’s

[00:08:04.11] spk_0:
Over a certain amount that you need to give them a tax two

[00:08:06.41] spk_1:
$100, requires a receipt. How about your about just a simple acknowledgment letter

[00:08:20.04] spk_0:
Also, you start then you start with the next. So then depending on how much money they got They sent you, you need to figure out who they are. If it’s over $1,000, you need to send it to somebody to research somebody in your office or somebody you outsource it to. You need to figure out who this donor is and why they gave to you.

[00:08:34.84] spk_1:
Well, all right. But for some non profits that could be, if it’s over $100,.

[00:09:16.54] spk_0:
Yes. If it’s over $100, you might wait till January and take the whole batch and screen them. So we are now screening a batch for a social service agency in Connecticut and we’re screening uh $690 that gave From $20 up in the last two years now. It’s late that we’re doing it now. But you know, it’s better than nothing. So ISIS suggests that, you know, we have another client that we’re doing over the pandemic. They said they had 274 new donors who gave over $500. And we’re looking for people within that Group within that cohort who would give maybe $10,000. They actually have people, we just finished that project and they actually have people who would give them, not just $10,000, but $100,000.

[00:09:46.04] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. All right. Let’s take a step at a time. So We’re sending our acknowledgment within within 48 hours. And if the tax receipt is required, then you might incorporate that into your acknowledgement or you might send something separate. Alright. We’re saying thank you fast. Now, is there is there nothing else between, you know, suppose that’s in october or november, donor. Nothing else between that and screening them in january. Don’t we want to we want to be involved with

[00:10:41.94] spk_0:
them. Yes. Yes. So then you start then you start with the seven. Thank you. Then you start with the seven. Thank you because this person has given you a a donation and depending on their level of giving and the effort you have to put in. You start with sending them your annual report, your newsletter. Welcome email. Some some agencies have a three series of welcome emails. And so you do that. Maybe you send them a donor survey which they respond to and tell you what aspect of their uh of your program they are interested in. That will help you a lot uh to know you know, we have a social service agency. They do senior care, they do middle school education, they do uh other kinds of adoption. So now which program is that person interested in? They can tell you or you can find out given are based on when you do the screening and when you do the research, you will see what else they’re giving to. And that will give you a clue as to which part of your program they care about.

[00:11:03.94] spk_1:
All right, well, you also have a clue based on what they gave to. Yes.

[00:11:04.45] spk_0:
Yes. If if

[00:11:05.88] spk_1:
if you know a lot of people don’t designate a gift. I agree. I agree with you. But if they designate their gift to a particular program, then you know where their affinity is.

[00:11:14.69] spk_0:
Yes. And you know that in the database right away. Of course.

[00:11:33.44] spk_1:
Absolutely. Yes. It’s important to preserve what people give to. Just like. It’s important to preserve the donors survey results that you suggest? Absolutely. Okay. What what might be. What what might we be soliciting uh information about in that in that follow up donor survey? You want to get to know folks better

[00:12:47.54] spk_0:
which aspect of the program they care about how they heard of your agency. You know uh Would they ever would they attend a webinar? If if you had one would they be willing to travel and come and see your facility? Uh You know is there a particular staff person that you know they have met with or or they know about you know each each agency is different. So you would ask different questions based on what you want to know about them. Uh what would help you? So those would be for instance with this where there are three different uh we have an irish theater company. Well they would want to know which which playwright you know with their favorite if you’re a music or something you might want to know which music they care about. If you’re a medical agency might we used to send out service and say which disease do you want to know more about? So we can send you newsletters about that disease. So you know based on your interest based on your work. You ask the right questions.

[00:12:49.08] spk_1:
Okay. And you also mentioned the seven. Thank you.

[00:12:52.23] spk_0:
Yes

[00:12:53.93] spk_1:
I say a little more about your seven. Thank

[00:15:37.44] spk_0:
you. This is this is my mantra that I have been teaching. You know I’ve been teaching at N. Y. U. And also at Columbia and I teach workshops all the time. And this is one of my mantra that I teach. And now my students have started deciding it back to me. So and it seems like oh my God you’re going to say thank you thank you thank you. It’s not that you have to be creative. So you might send them the tax receipt which is the first thank you. And then depending on after that you might have uh the executive director writer. Thank you. You might have the development director writer. Thank you. You might have the program director. We have a little archaeological excavation. You know there are two main archaeologists, archaeologists involved with it. and depending on which one uh is uh you know closest to that person who send the gift. We’ll have them right appears on the on the thank you note which we draw for them for some people. I might call them and say you know because I’m in new york city I might call them to say thank you. I have received your gift. It’ll take a while for us to process it. But in the meantime I want you to know that your check was received and we’re so grateful and the excavation will start on such and such a date and we’ll send you pictures and this is our facebook page and you know communicate with them. Uh one of my friends uh sent her son to a boarding school and she sent a little gift where she’d been sending it to the local school all the time. But now because it was a boarding school, the parents suddenly she got a call from my parents really wanted, why is the parent calling me when she said, you know, I know you sent a gift and I wanted to tell you thanks from the school. But also I want to tell you that I was yesterday at the tennis match in which your son played and my son is captain of the team and he played so well and we were so proud of my goodness, do you think that lady is not going to give another gift after that? I mean it’s just brilliant and it wasn’t even a staff member. It was a volunteer. I have I have another agency this year. There was a crisis and people ask me and I happened to have insight into that particular problem. They said what should we give to? I said, oh, this is a great agency. I’ve been, you know involved with them as a volunteer for a long time. You know, they use the money very well. They’re doing really great work. They sent the money. I sent the money. None of us have ever gotten a thank you note. Now they’re doing the work. They have social media, they have facebook, they have Lincoln they have a blast. They’re sending us the, all the information about what they’re doing and we are so happy. They’re doing it. But they didn’t do God one Thank You. And one of the donors sent it from a donor advised fund. He’s got no thank you, let alone seven.

[00:15:43.44] spk_1:
It’s time for a break.

[00:16:43.64] spk_2:
Turn to communications. I’m on their email list and they said something this week. That’s very interesting. They talk about seeing good news stories on social media, uh, specifically linked in, in this case and the uh, frequent lament that people will, will comment that you’ll never find stories like this in the mainstream media. In fact turned two points out that many, many of these good news stories originated in mainstream media. Um, you know, some are, we’re in newspapers, others might have gotten exposure from national outlets like the new york times or CNN, or one of the major networks. But the point is a lot of these stories originate and in some mainstream media and then make their way to social media. So what’s that mean for you? It means there are a

[00:16:44.64] spk_3:
lot of journalists

[00:16:58.94] spk_2:
that are interested in good news stories that maybe just generate a laugh or a smile or it’s, it’s um, it’s more of a story about work that a nonprofit has done.

[00:17:02.04] spk_3:
So the journalists

[00:17:03.33] spk_1:
are out there.

[00:17:04.28] spk_2:
They are hungry for these good news stories. If

[00:17:06.79] spk_3:
you’ve got something

[00:17:07.85] spk_2:
like that.

[00:17:09.74] spk_1:
Look internally,

[00:17:10.74] spk_3:
if you’ve got some good news

[00:17:27.94] spk_2:
turn to, can help you get it noticed right, help you craft that good news story and then get it exposed in all the outlets you’ve heard me talk about. So they finish up this on this. I’m choking up. That’s, that’s how that’s how, uh, much this touches me,

[00:17:33.04] spk_3:
they finish up there

[00:17:58.64] spk_2:
their email by saying there are lots of journalists out there that are ready to give good news stories a look despite what you may read on linkedin. So, you know, they’ve got their eyes on the media market. Turn to communications. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O. Now back to next year’s plan for your year end donors.

[00:19:01.14] spk_1:
Yeah. I mean, that’s that is a very bad practice To have gone. Well, you know, some folks say 24 hours, you’re, you’re being more generous 48 hours, that’s still fine. But If it goes much longer than that and you’re, you’re saying it’s been months or whatever, you know, that, uh, to not acknowledge every single gift, I don’t care if these are $3 gifts. I don’t care if the dollar and a half. It still deserves an acknowledgement. You just never know. Someone might be testing you with a small dollar amount and really who gives a dollar and a half anyway, so that, that’s, you know, that’s a hyperbolic on the low end, right? Uh, but if someone gives you $5, they might be testing you, they might have capacity to give 5000 or 50,000. They may have capacity. They may feel whether they can’t or or they know they can, but they’re they’re trying you out every gift deserves acknowledgement. So when you were just describing that’s very poor practice.

[00:19:08.04] spk_0:
Well, unfortunately, the excuse is that they are because they’re doing such good work. They are understaffed and their non profit. So they don’t have capacity.

[00:19:34.24] spk_1:
That doesn’t, that doesn’t sell. That’s a that’s a nonstarter. You need to invest in your organizations to the extent that you can thank people. Thanking people is not overhead, It’s not worthless. It’s it’s an administrative investment. It’s not an expensive, it’s it’s an investment in the relationships that you’re talking about. You mentioned earlier, you know, absolutely relationship building, if that’s an investment thanking

[00:21:02.24] spk_0:
people. Absolutely, and and that’s how one needs to think about it. And and you know, the board members, the staff, the executive director, everybody needs to be aware that how important this is. Now, another thing that people ask us a lot is we got a gift from a donor advised fund and we don’t have any access to the donor. So we don’t know how to thank them and we want to know who they are, what they are and you know, they’re freaking every sort of possible way of trying to google it to trying to get us to do it. This is so simple. This these these two donors who gave to this charity that gave through the donor advised fund that I know about, they are friends of the board members if they put a list in front of the board members and said, you know, we got a gift from. So and so family fund and unfortunately we don’t know how to thank them. They said that maybe they sent a thank you note to the to the donor advised fund agency. Somebody would speak up or you look in your database and say, oh, they came to the gala. This is the same person who came to the gala and sat at, you know, board member access table. So he’s gonna know this person. So let’s tell him that your friend gave us a gift even though there was no gala, even though there was just a virtual gala and he still gave us a gift. He didn’t even sit at your table.

[00:21:24.64] spk_1:
All right. So those, right. Those are, those are good ideas. But there is frustration among, among nonprofits getting donor advised fund gifts when you know, okay, so you’re right, try try your board query your database. But there are gifts that come that sometimes that folks can’t identify and that I know that is a frustration among nonprofits.

[00:21:56.24] spk_0:
Yes. But you know, more and more people have who have set up donor advised funds want people to know who is giving. It’s, it’s less and less about being anonymous. Now, people are going back to setting up foundations or entities from which they can give, uh, and be known and they want that because they want to add their credibility to the gift. They want people to know that a person whom they know give to this charity because it helps the charity.

[00:22:28.74] spk_1:
It does. Right. But there are, there are donors who would not agree with you. But I do, I agree. But there are always some donors that are going to remain anonymous. And I mean, I’ve always thought, you know, focus on the donors who you can identify. I understand the frustration for those. You cannot, they may come to you through a facebook fundraising event and facebook doesn’t share the information. They might come to you from a donor advised fund. That is not a name that you can track, uh, focus on the folks that you can thank and for the donor advised fund. Of course we should be sending a letter to the fund. Right, thanking asking them to forward the letter onto the anonymous donors.

[00:23:12.94] spk_0:
Exactly. And they would, I’m sure the same donor, the same donor, the friend of mine that gave because I said, oh, this is a good charity could give to them. It’s also sent to another charity in the same space. And he got his seven. Thank you. He actually told me I got seven. Thank you. So, he said, you know, the development director wrote, the executive director wrote the board member wrote, they sent him an annual report. You know, they invited him to an event. They sent him different things. You know, I mean reports, personalized. Yeah. All right. I mean, you could take a little video and send it to the person, you know, that you can do

[00:24:18.44] spk_1:
personalized video is a terrific idea. Um, I’ll give a shout out to a company that’s not expensive. Bond euro bongiorno dot com, bong boro easy personalized videos. You shoot a one minute video and you say thank you. And you can, you can be walking, you can have any background you want to know the production value is not the concern, sincerity, The genuineness. That’s the concern. And you do it in a 45 seconds or one minute video. You sent it right back to the right to the person. You can do it immediately. You could do it the next day. So, and Bongiorno is by no means the only personalized video platform out there. But Um, yeah, you’re right. Personalized video is a good one. all right. So you mentioned these screenings. So now we’re now we’re a little longer on now. We’re into January. Right? We’ve done our activities for the fourth quarter. Now we’re conveying into January. What kind of information uh, you’re looking for in a, in a screening. Does it have to be a commercial screening? You know, what are we,

[00:25:09.24] spk_0:
what are we looking at? You could, you could do research or you could just go for a screening depending on the number of donors. If you have seven donors, you know, you just give them to somebody to research who has tools like screening tools and research tools and ask them to do it for you and that’s all you need, You don’t need a sophisticated screening. But if you have 670 donors or something that I knew and they were given maybe over $20 or $50, then you certainly should have a screening down. But don’t try to do it yourself because then when you get it back, you have this information and you have no idea what to do with it because there are mismatches in the screening. It’s an automated process. There are mismatches in the screening. You know, there’ll be a lot of tony-martignetti is and Putin presides in there and you have to make

[00:25:30.54] spk_1:
sure that I don’t know if there are such good examples who not pursued and tony-martignetti are not very common names, but there’ll be a lot of there’ll be a lot of smith’s and uh smiths and joneses et cetera. Okay.

[00:25:32.68] spk_0:
Yes. And and you know you being me is how many food and presents? All

[00:25:39.12] spk_1:
right. There aren’t too many tony-martignetti is I would be surprised.

[00:25:50.84] spk_0:
Okay. In fact it’s more confusing when there are only two or three because then you really begin to think this is your person and then it turns out it’s not your person.

[00:25:53.14] spk_1:
Right? Okay. So you’re you’re you’re caution against doing it on your own or I mean if you’re going to do it on your own. You said if you had just seven or so. You know, you’re not gonna hire an agency for that. But you just, the point is you need to be careful that you’ve got the right person

[00:26:08.50] spk_0:
right? Like checking,

[00:26:10.24] spk_1:
check middle initials, check addresses, check whatever you do know against what you found to make sure you’re, you’re dealing with the right person.

[00:27:04.64] spk_0:
Well, you can, you can outsource, you know, a little bit of work every month with somebody with some research firm. We do that all the time. Uh, you know, it’s not that we do it all, you know, in one go and finish. You know, we have like an arrangement where if somebody new comes in, gives more than $1000 get more than $500. Whatever matters to them, they send it over to us and we screen them, research them, give them back information on that person. Okay. Okay. But it’s geared to small agencies. It’s geared to small agencies so that, you know, because otherwise what happens is the Harvard University’s and the big, big who have seven researchers get all the big donors because they have the tools and they have the staff. So you, you do need to implement some of the techniques that the top fundraising organizations you

[00:27:13.64] spk_1:
mentioned, you mentioned before screening and research tools there, are there some out there that you can suggest that folks can use

[00:28:02.94] spk_0:
on their own. Yes. You could, you could make a substitution with with something like ivy or donor search and try to do some work on your own. You could look at the, you could look at the linkedin profile of the person. If you know, you know, I mean small simple things. You could google them of course. Uh small things that you know, you could look at if you know where they work. You could look at the bio most law firms have the lawyers while on on the website many firms have the, you know, employees, bio senior employees bio doctors. There are free sites for looking at doctors to see what kind of specialty does the doctor have. Is it something that’s relevant to my cause?

[00:28:05.45] spk_1:
Yeah. Good. Alright, right. If you can find the person’s company firm that they work for or practice. Okay. And you mentioned I wave and donor search.

[00:28:31.94] spk_0:
Yes. These are subscription services. So you have to pay a little bit uh, you know, usually it’s in your subscription and you can check out your donors through that. And the aggregate information of other gifts that the organization has received. Other organizations have received from the same donor. Okay. Right. Right.

[00:28:37.14] spk_1:
Other charities that the person is given to us. So then you start to get a little profile of person. All right. So you can have

[00:29:03.54] spk_0:
to be careful because of the person your donor is in new york and the person, a person with the same name is giving in texas, you have to be careful to see why would my donor given texas? Maybe it’s another person or maybe he went to school in texas and he is giving in texas. Or he’s giving to a senior center in texas because my daughter has a mother there who’s in that home. So you know you need to be a bit intelligent about.

[00:29:30.84] spk_1:
Yeah right with that. With that caution you gotta you gotta that caveat. You gotta be uh certain that you’re dealing with the right person. Otherwise you’re going down you’re gonna start talking to the person about their gifts to texas. And they’re going to say I don’t know what you’re talking about and then then you’re gonna be embarrassed. So all right. All right. Um Okay so screening is a possibility. Good. You can engage your company. You can do some on your own. What what what what are we gonna do from what we learned from our screening now? What?

[00:31:54.44] spk_0:
So there’s the thing I mean you know we do research where research for and we send research to our clients. The question is how do you read this research? What does it mean to you? What what is the interpretation you get out of a research report on? Suppose we write a little bio on this person. So what what what what is the strategy that comes out of this research. So the first thing that indicates higher giving is age. So anyone over the age of 60 or 65 has more disposable income. They paid their mortgage, they probably paid their children’s college education. They’re beginning to think about their own, you know, legacy and they’re beginning to give more generously. So 60, you have a better chance of getting a higher upgrading their gifts before that. People are still on that little hamster wheel, you know, increasing their mortgage, buying a little bigger house, sending their Children to a better school. You know, getting them into college, they just often do not have time unless they are very community minded and they might give to their local community or their college or things like that. But but they become more Uh philanthropic, more generous generally after the age of 16. Now, there are always exceptions. The other thing there are a lot of people look for as you know, being in plan giving is people without Children, because people without Children do not have that usual legacy is, oh, I’m leaving good Children into the world. Yeah, that’s great. But when you don’t have Children, you have to really think, what is it that I am leaving? What footprint am I living in this world that I lived and who benefited because I lived And those people take a little more care and thought and and usually we’ll try to make an impact in a different way and you can help them do that and make them happy. And you know, there there’s a lot of studies that say people who give are happier people who give actually benefit more from their gifts than the person receiving. So it’s at that age, particularly when you have that reflective time for reflection that we see better gifts.

[00:32:02.64] spk_1:
It’s time for tony steak too

[00:32:59.84] spk_2:
planned giving accelerator. I’m starting the promotion again this time for the January 2022 class, I have accelerated the accelerator. It’s no longer a 12-month course. It is now a six-month course. I will teach you step by step, Everything that was in the 12 month course, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna step it up six month course. I’ll teach you everything you need to know about starting your planned giving program and you’re not only learning from me, you’re learning from your peers, folks who are similarly situated, they’ve got the same frustrations, they’ve got the same tensions bandwidth constraints as you do. You learn from them, They’re your, they become your friends, your allies, your safety net in planned giving accelerator. So if you want to get your plan giving program started,

[00:33:03.14] spk_3:
You want to start in 2022,

[00:33:05.64] spk_1:
you can start

[00:33:06.28] spk_3:
with plan Giving accelerator. I

[00:33:19.34] spk_2:
hope you’ll join me. All the info you need is that planned Giving accelerator dot com. That is tony stick to, we’ve got boo koo

[00:33:20.86] spk_1:
but loads more

[00:33:21.61] spk_2:
time for next

[00:33:23.10] spk_3:
year’s plan for your

[00:33:24.59] spk_1:
year end donors,

[00:35:46.14] spk_0:
then there are other things like education for one thing, if you know the education you can no other people who went to that school. So maybe you can have them go on. Maybe have a board member went there so you can build a relationship more strongly. But also of course education indicates more disposable income. So you begin to see when you build a profile of the person you say, oh well they went to the school from that area, They studied social work or they studied history or that tells you something about what they are interested in. Right? And then there’s the question of, Although I said that people who don’t have Children, you know, are very sought after by plan giving professionals, on the other hand, people in their lifetime are more generous who have Children over the age of six Because they’re trying to inculcate good values in their Children. They start to see the value of a community. So there are studies that show that people who have Children over the age of six, there could be 6-18, they could be 18-24. But a family unit, a couple usually has more disposable income. It could be a same sex couple or a heterogeneous couple. But the heterosexual couple. But the point is because there are two incomes in that family, they usually have more disposable income. So so that that’s important when you see that. So those are little things that you’re looking at. And then of course there’s the interest, what else they give to, You know, how old are they? Was it their parents that also gave to this charity or this type of charity? I have a I have a friend and he gave to a university music program. And I said to him, why do you give, you didn’t even go to that university? Why are you giving to that music program? He said, well, I became friends with the dean. They invited me to an event. I went on a trip with them to Austria to listen to classical music. And he said in the end, you know, my father died when I was very young. And the one thing I remember is sitting on his lap when he played the piano. So the piano music to him was, and he doesn’t have any Children. So, you know, that’s what makes him happy giving to students who play the piano

[00:36:20.23] spk_1:
reminds us of course reminds him of his dad. And he hopes that that uh those young students will have Children of their own and their those Children will sit on their laps the way he sat on his dad’s lap. All right. Those are good. Those are, those are valuable insights that we can, we can get from uh, that we that we can get from the screening. So now going back to what you had suggested earlier when you said get them to know you and let them get to know, uh, sorry, get to know them and let them get to know you. So how do we do the second part of that now that we have this information, valuable insights? How do we let these new donors get to know us?

[00:37:37.13] spk_0:
Well, we talked about the series of three emails that welcome them. We have invitations. Uh, and of course in this environment, maybe you can’t invite them so easily, but you could still send them a video. Now. We had a homeless, uh, organized agency for homeless people last year that we were working with. And they sent out a video of their new building and somebody sent them $25,000 just from that video because it was the Executive director going through the building and saying, you know, we had such hopes for this building. We finally got it built. We’ve got all these people were going to bring into this building and the person was so touched. He was also a senior citizen. He had money. He felt like, oh, let me help. There are other people out there my age who do not have housing. And here is somebody who’s an agency that’s providing it. And that video, you know, a small video that they didn’t even actually seriously ask for money in it. They just said, and if you’d like to, you know, there was a little bit and

[00:37:44.23] spk_1:
well, it it touched it touched somebody. Well, video can do that. It’s powerful that way.

[00:39:16.22] spk_0:
All right. And of course a tour with the executive director. So you’re really getting to know the person, you know, face to face. So as best you can in this environment. You know, it’s a trusting relationship. So by video you’re seeing them as best you can. The other thing is of course you could set up coffee with them and people are much more accessible now because they’re not going out. So people are taking calls even if they are not. Yeah. In where at home, they’re still taking calls from wherever they are. They’re doing zoom with you. They want to be conducted. All of us are starved for human contact. We took these things for granted. And now suddenly we realized how valuable our community is. You know, I walk out, I’m an anonymous new york city right where nobody really knows anybody and you walk on the street and nobody should recognize. You know, it’s not like that anymore. The moment I walk out on the street, my neighbors are standing out there, they’re also walking. There’s no nowhere to go and nothing to do except to go for a while. So they’re all out there walking and they all suddenly know each other. So you realize how important your community is. So do you think that the area neighborhood association and things that are being done in our neighborhood are getting more attention. Sure, more people are planting, helping to plant in the parks, more people are helping to give to the local community association. Suddenly that’s becoming more important. So something that’s good for the small agencies.

[00:39:18.39] spk_1:
So engagement, Yeah. Uh, engagement at whatever level it might be something communal and community and in, in face to face,

[00:40:10.61] spk_0:
yes, might be something come and paint a mural on your wall of your, you know, of your agency. We have a, a friend of mine runs a clear art center community, you know, they make pottery, they got the local artists together to come and paint the wall even urine Corbett, they could still do that. You wear your mask, You come and paint the world their artistic. So you could plant flowers in your garden, invite them to do that, invite them to do outdoor things in the local park. You could have a gathering of rooftops. People have been doing gatherings or some of our clients have been doing gatherings or rooftops whatever you can do outdoors, especially in the summer. And then also we were talking, well, we were

[00:40:14.43] spk_1:
talking about january, but that’s okay. Well into spring

[00:40:55.71] spk_0:
now january, you could do a lunch and learn, which is a good time to do a lunch and learn. And that also gives you an information back because the people who attend, you do the lunch and learn on different programs and people sign up based on the interest. So then, you know, well this donor signed up for this lunch and learn on this program. So obviously that’s what they care about or they might write to you and say I didn’t, I really wanted to attend this, but I couldn’t. So you send them the recording of that lunch. That’s another, uh, value of having something which is recorded, which you’re doing on zoom. You can record it like, just like your radio programs, tony

[00:41:15.11] spk_1:
I’m a, I’m a big fan of big fan of audio. I think it’s very intimate medium, yep. All right. So we’ve, we’ve, we’ve thought through our engagement, it might be something in real life. It might be something virtual. I love. I mean, you gave a lot of good ideas. Um, now we need to plan for the next solicitation.

[00:41:21.53] spk_0:
Now

[00:41:49.61] spk_1:
we’re in, we’re in like the third quarter of 3rd quarter of next year and it’s coming time to solicit the person again. They made a year into gift this year. So we’re going to presume, but they’re, they’re going to do the same. Let’s exclude the folks who maybe became major donors and they’ve got a relationship now with a gift officer. We’re not, we’re not at that level. Uh, we’re dealing with the larger group. We’re planning our fourth quarter. What should we be thinking about in terms of possibly upgrading or should we not try to upgrade in the second year. What’s your advice around planning that, that second year solicitation?

[00:45:27.39] spk_0:
Well, another thing that we never spoke about and some of my clients and colleagues will be very upset if I don’t mention it is creating a giving circle. So you could have, if you have enough donors at certain levels, you could try to upgrade them by creating a council, uh, you know, giving society, you know, so, so somebody who gave 500 you could give them an incentive to upgrade to 1000 because when they’re at 1000 they’ll get such and such benefits. You know, they’ll meet somebody that they care about or they’ll get a painting or they’ll hear a concert or you’ll have some event just for them. So, so you’re constantly upgrading those who gave 500 to 1000, those who gave 1000 to 5000, those who gave 5002, 10,000. So, so a little theater client is probably going to say, oh, you know, uh, famous irish actor is going to speak with 10 of you and you only get invited to that if, if you give, you know, a little bit more than what they were already given and that and that creates a cohort of people. So they have a little sense of community because that giving society is going to meet, um, we have the example of a museum that was up. It’s a very famous glass museum called the corning Museum of Glass and it was very well supported by the corning company. But the corning company went through some very tough times and so they needed private support during that period. So they started with a giving society where people came up, they went through the museum, they were passing by on their way to Niagara Falls or they were interested in glass or whatever and they were told that if you give this much that’s great, we are very grateful. But if you give this much you’ll be invited to an event the opening of our show and guess what? We’ll fly you up in our private plane because corning had the private plan and you won’t have to drive all the way you know from new york city well and and that was something the company could no longer support the museum financially. But they had this plane which flew up with their executives and I was such a such a cashier to to fly up in the blind drain, arrive at this museum, attend this beautiful event on roman glass with food from roman times and then have the director of the museum walk you through the show. I said one of the most beautiful things that you know, I was a stuff remember trying to attend this and I thought I was wowed and and so you know you can be creative with almost anything you could if you’re a social service agency will say well I can’t do that well you know you have people in your community who will come out and provide their celebrity help to you. So you could still have somebody do a little concert or somebody, somebody from your community who’s a wonderful singer musician or something. And and it may be not relevant, but maybe their daughter was helped by your uh, you know, educational charity or their mother was served by your senior citizen center. They will do things for you. There was a person who used to come and play the piano at a senior citizen center in uptown all the way up, you know, above the Columbia University is in Morningside

[00:45:30.03] spk_1:
Heights or something, riverside

[00:46:01.08] spk_0:
riverside riverside. Yeah. You know, they’re above Colombia where the cloisters, the museum is there and nobody knew who this person was. But when we looked him up, he was a very famous pianist who used to play at the Carlyle and his mother was in the center. And so he would come up and perform. And so we asked him if he would perform and he did a concert and Steinway hall for us because he was a famous man and there are little treasures in your community. You just have to find out about them. There are little gems floating around.

[00:46:14.68] spk_1:
All right. So you like the idea of incentivizing folks to give a little give more, Even even in the 2nd year. So they were they were our, it was first year was last year. Now we’re planning for the next year incentivize them to increase even in that just in that second year. Yes,

[00:46:46.98] spk_0:
yes. And they will because you’ve been talking to them, you’ve been engaging with them in different ways and, and maybe some of them will become, you know, much higher level donors because for small agencies, a small amount can make a big difference. There is if they gave that small amount of a much larger organization, they can’t give them that personalized attention and it’s not going to make, its going to be a drop in the bucket.

[00:46:52.58] spk_1:
Yeah. There are those folks who will be more will be more generous

[00:46:56.35] spk_3:
to smaller agencies

[00:46:57.35] spk_1:
because they get a lot better treatment. They have more fulfilling relationships with a smaller organization than they would at an organization where their gift was

[00:47:07.88] spk_0:
not in their communities. They, you know, they feel closer to it.

[00:47:14.38] spk_1:
Okay. Alright then. Um, why don’t you leave us with some final thoughts please?

[00:47:54.88] spk_0:
Well, just remember about the leaky bucket. You know, it’s a, we all grew up with that song. There’s a hole in the bucket, realize a dear Liza. So just remember you are not going to let your bucket leak. You’re gonna make every effort you can to get those the donor who’s gonna fall through the cracks, Give him as much attention as I say lavish movie cultivation, whatever tactics you can think of. Whatever relationship building and getting to know you uh, thoughts and strategies that you can come up with, have a plan, learn about them and let them learn about you.

[00:48:16.47] spk_1:
Excellent. I’m gonna look, I’m going to remind myself uh refresh my memory about there’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza what do we do something like? What do we do? All right, thank you. Hernan Prasad founder and president Prasad consulting and research. The company is at prasad consulting dot com and she is at Prasad C Thank you very much. Program.

[00:48:24.37] spk_0:
Thank you Tory pleasure to talk to you.

[00:48:27.07] spk_1:
My pleasure as well.

[00:48:30.77] spk_2:
Next week engaged

[00:48:31.62] spk_3:
boards will

[00:48:32.58] spk_2:
fundraise with Michael Davidson and brian

[00:48:55.77] spk_1:
Saber from asking matters if you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Mhm. Our creative producer

[00:49:26.17] spk_4:
is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty you with me next week for nonprofit radio Big Donald. profit ideas for the over 95% go out and be great. Mhm

Nonprofit Radio for July 26, 2021: 12 New Donor Qs & Train Like A Champ

My Guest:

Andy Robinson: 12 New Donor Qs & Train Like A Champ

It’s been so long since Andy Robinson was a guest, we need to cover two topics together. First, a dozen potential questions to ask your donor who just said yes to a gift. Then, his advice to up your game as a trainer and facilitator.

 

 

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Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:00:03.84] spk_2:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio

[00:01:57.94] spk_1:
Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast and uh oh I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with idiopathic thrombosis. radio Penick purpura if I didn’t know why you bled me with the idea that you missed this week’s show 12 new donor questions and train like a champ. It’s been so long since Andy Robinson was a guest. We need to cover two topics together. First a dozen potential questions to ask your donor who just said yes to a gift. Then his advice to up your game as a trainer and facilitator, tony state too podcast pleasantries were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. And by sending Blue the only all in one digital marketing platform empowering non profits to grow. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in blue. It’s my pleasure to welcome back Andy Robinson to nonprofit radio he provides training and consulting for nonprofits, businesses and government agencies. Over the past 25 years. He’s worked with clients in 47 states and Canada. He’s the author of six books including train your board and everyone else to raise money at train your board dot com. His latest book is what every board member needs to know do and avoid Andy is at Andy Robinson online dot com. Welcome back Andy,

[00:01:59.32] spk_0:
it’s great to be with you. Thank you for having me today,

[00:02:08.54] spk_1:
absolute pleasure. I just want to make sure that listeners understand you were on the show just a couple months ago, May Talking about boards and financial uh financial analysis and data. But that was a replay from 2012,

[00:02:16.81] spk_0:
right with my colleague Nancy Wasserman and she and I did a different book together about that topic.

[00:02:27.94] spk_1:
exactly. Uh and so it’s been since 2012 that you were on the show, so it’s time to catch up and do uh do these two topics together.

[00:02:32.54] spk_0:
I missed you. tony

[00:02:33.84] spk_1:
Oh, you’re terrific. Thank you. Up in Vermont, See see what a humane people we have up to Vermont. Yeah,

[00:02:41.76] spk_0:
I hope so. Um anyway, I’m pleased to be back. It’s an honor to talk with you. It’s an honor to be with your listeners and thank you for inviting me.

[00:03:00.24] spk_1:
My pleasure. Um Does it annoy vermonters that everybody who doesn’t live in new Hampshire, Vermont or maine confuses new Hampshire and Vermont?

[00:03:16.34] spk_0:
Um A few people get annoyed by that. Um The cultures of the two states are somewhat different and the politics of the two states are somewhat different, but they have a lot in common, and certainly there are many people who commute back and forth and have friends on both sides of the Connecticut river. And so I wouldn’t sweat it.

[00:03:21.64] spk_1:
You’re not. Is that is that the Connecticut river that divides

[00:03:23.86] spk_0:
it? Yes, it is.

[00:03:25.64] spk_1:
Yes. That’s

[00:03:25.90] spk_0:
the kind of the river you

[00:03:26.99] spk_1:
pick up geography on probably. So you’re not among the vermonters. That is upset by the

[00:03:50.54] spk_0:
I am not and I’ve been here about 20 years. So it is my adopted home. Um much as you, you know, are living in an adopted home. So am I? So I can’t even claim the title vermonter. Um I would like to, but the locals are a little, you know, Vermont or is someone who’s been here for multiple generations. I’m gonna

[00:03:51.34] spk_1:
be generation. Yeah,

[00:03:52.59] spk_0:
it’s a generational thing, but it’s all it’s all good. And I I love living here and I’m grateful every day to be here.

[00:04:23.74] spk_1:
Wonderful. Alright, so thank you for for letting those of us who make that mistake off the hook. No worries. It’s the same as the Kentucky Tennessee dilemma. All right. 12 questions. So we’re starting off with 12 questions that you might potentially ask a new donor. Someone who has just said just said yes to a gift and your first one is how would you like to make your payments?

[00:06:16.94] spk_0:
Yeah. Right. Um and you know, I mean it’s it can be awkward because it’s we’re having this deep conversation about why do you care about this work and how do you want to participate and what would feel significant to you? And and then we have to at some point get to the logistical question of are you writing me a check and by sending you an invoice? Are we doing the credit card, you making uh installment payments to fulfill this gift? And so yeah, I think that has to be one of the questions is how would you like to make payment? And a classic solution to this is to bring a pledge form with you. So when the donor says yes you pull out the form and it includes things like how do I spell your name and how do you prefer to be contacted with me? Um Do you like email? Do you like a personal phone call? Should I come and meet with you once or twice a year? Like how do you want to engage with us? And then also there’s the payment question like are you writing the check and by sending you an invoice we’re doing installments, all those sorts of things and you know I will do a little shout out to my colleague Harvey Mckinnon who I suspect has been on your show at some point and and Harvey is an international consultant. He and I did an article about this together that I think first appeared in the Grassroots fundraising journal Once upon a Time. So he’s he’s the co author of this content. Um, but I bring it up because he’s like the international guru of monthly giving, and he will never let the moment pass without saying, you know, would you consider making this a monthly payment model? So for folks who don’t know, this is the sustainer program model where people make automatic monthly payments on their credit card or directly from their bank. So that could be one of the questions are you a monthly donor? If not, would you like to be, is that a way to fulfill this commitment? So, yeah, how how do you want to pay? Is one of those questions? Yeah, sure.

[00:06:38.24] spk_1:
Well, right, because we don’t want to I don’t wanna be so excited by the by the yes that we we shake hands, we hug and then we rush out the door. You know thinking if I stay longer they might change their minds. And then we don’t get to the details of you know right, what what can we expect? I mean you gotta this is this is a business here and let’s acknowledge from you just got a commitment for someone to invest in your business. Yes. Was that investment going to come through?

[00:07:05.64] spk_0:
So we have to be to use the wrong word here. We have to be shameless about that. And at least you know we have to be forthright and say okay this is awesome. You have just made my day thank you for saying yes. I am so appreciative how do we do this? How do we transfer the money? I mean maybe it’s stock option, right? You know, I mean there’s a lot of ways that people can make payments, So yes, thank you for naming that Tony that is one of the 12 questions for sure.

[00:07:10.42] spk_1:
Of course. Well we’re gonna we’re gonna take them off.

[00:07:13.18] spk_0:
You have, do you have them in front of you?

[00:07:14.94] spk_1:
I have a list, yeah,

[00:07:16.11] spk_0:
yeah, great freedom to me.

[00:07:18.14] spk_1:
Look at this, the guy who wrote the article with Harvey, by the way, Harvey Makin has not been on the show, if you’re recommending,

[00:07:22.64] spk_0:
I will hook you up with Harvey because he’s very good storyteller and his thoughtful and entertaining and very smart.

[00:07:29.04] spk_1:
So the guy who co authored the article, you don’t have it in front of you,

[00:07:31.94] spk_0:
um you know, I I should have it in front of me,

[00:07:34.50] spk_1:
but I think you know, make you tick off as many as you can see

[00:07:37.46] spk_0:
why don’t I do that? Why don’t I try and why am I try and remember them and then you can feed me the ones I’ve forgotten

[00:07:43.52] spk_1:
what I already gave you one. So if you don’t get credit for that one.

[00:07:46.92] spk_0:
Yeah. Well you know what happened and this is full disclosure and you’re probably your audience doesn’t need to know this. But I pulled up the wrong slide deck this morning as my cue. Oh I thought we were talking about succession planning. Oh questions. Oh well let’s see if I can.

[00:08:00.16] spk_1:
I thought the host of this show was lackluster.

[00:08:03.43] spk_0:
Yeah. Well

[00:08:07.44] spk_1:
I’m rare that we have a guest who’s been less prepared than

[00:08:08.71] spk_0:
I will

[00:08:10.54] spk_1:
we will bring this together, put you on the spot giving you once you

[00:08:25.64] spk_0:
have given me one so you won’t get them in any particular order. But I’ll do this remembering and that’s fine. I’ll give you one of my favorite questions is will you give us a testimonial about why you give

[00:08:32.24] spk_1:
that counts? I’m checking that one off. Thank you about that one. Well we’re not we’re going to see how many you can remember through the, through the discussion. I think

[00:09:13.34] spk_0:
that’s fair. Why, Why I like that one is two things first of all and you know, tony You know this your longtime fundraiser, the most powerful fundraising is a peer to peer, right? It’s one donor talking to another donor and this is a way that you can get one donor to literally talk to another. This is why I made a commitment and you know, can I put it on the website? Can I put it in our printed materials? Is something I could share on social media? How can I use that? Um, Okay, a related question is, tell me more about why you make it you chose. Yes. Like, tell me a little more about, you know, you just made a big decision. I’m I’m moved. I’m pleased to say more about this commitment. Why is this meaningful to you?

[00:09:57.44] spk_1:
What is it about our work? That’s right. And, you know, that some of these may be subsumed in your ongoing conversation about the gift. I mean, you know, so, as you’re talking, that’s fair, as you’re talking about books about making a gift, you know, it’s not it’s very rarely in my experience, a one shot, you know, you ask, and then they say yes or no. I’ll think about it there use conversations. So, you might very well, first of all, you might already have known what they love from their previous giving. But through your conversations about this particular gift, you might find that out if you didn’t already know. So you might not have to ask afterwards right already.

[00:10:12.54] spk_0:
I think a good discovery conversation with donors leading up to the ask is going to reveal at least some of these questions and answers. I think that’s fair and not everybody is that thorough or thoughtful in their cultivation and their discovery with donors. And so if you don’t have a clear answer to that question, you want to know that

[00:10:56.74] spk_1:
it’s time for a break. Turn to communications, The chronicle of philanthropy, The new york Times, The Wall Street Journal, UsA Today stanford Social Innovation Review, the Washington post, the Hill Cranes, nonprofit quarterly Forbes Market Watch. That’s where two and two clients have gotten exposure. You want exposure in outlets like those. Turn to has the relationships to make it happen for you turn hyphen two dot c o. Your story is their mission. Now let’s go back to 12 new donor questions and train like a champ.

[00:11:54.24] spk_0:
This also relates to one I already mentioned. Which is what are your communications preferences? Like how should I stay in touch with you? Should I send you email? Should I send you a newsletter? Do you like the occasional phone calls? Should I take you to lunch? Um, how often? And you know, a related one. This is a little awkward and I would save this for the end, but I’m bringing it up now is what’s your given calendar? Like how often may I ask you And the, the assumption we have with major donors And I’m putting air quotes here for folks who are listening. The assumption we have is that they are once a year donors, you know, typically at the end of the year and we do the cultivation and we try to close the gift at the end of the year. And I just want to say that everybody is different. And you know, here’s an old quote which is if you know one donor, you know one donor and there’s this strong tendency to sort of extrapolate to everybody. All donors behave like this. And it’s not true.

[00:12:02.20] spk_1:
So

[00:13:10.64] spk_0:
the way I might frame this is I might say to somebody, what’s your given calendar? Are you typically a once a year kind of person or if I have a special need or an emergency? Can I come to you additionally, how does that work for you? How do you think about your giving in that way? Um, another question, especially if you’re dealing with older donors, um, for those who can’t see us tony and I both have a lot of gray this call today. Yeah, that’s all right. No, no shame in that. Anyway. If you’re if you’re dealing with older donors, one of the questions I would ask is, um, does your family know about this? And the next time that I come back to talk with you, can we have some of your kids or heirs or family members in the room so we can all discuss together why this work is meaningful to you? Because I don’t want just one donor. I want generations of donors, Right? And if dad is in for mom is in front of the kids saying this is important to me. Here’s why. And we’re trying to add to our donor list and also continue this donation after that donor has passed on, then it’s good for the family members to know why this is a priority for the person who’s making the gift

[00:13:15.70] spk_1:
interesting. That’s an interesting one. You’re sort of leading into a plan giving discussion.

[00:13:19.98] spk_0:
We are

[00:13:27.74] spk_1:
and the interesting, yeah. Trying to get the parents to engage their next generation. Their

[00:13:50.04] spk_0:
kids share their philanthropic priorities with their Children, you know, and if you have, if somebody has a family foundation and the kids are on the board, I mean this is already happening, but most donors don’t. Right. Um, so I I yeah, that, I mean that’s one that sort of surprises people because a lot of people don’t think of that one, right? It’s like, who else? Um, another

[00:13:51.15] spk_1:
Live by the way, you’re at five out of 11 so

[00:13:53.10] spk_0:
far. I’m rocking and rolling here. Um,

[00:13:55.15] spk_1:
you’re you’re in a street f so far, but there’s still time, there’s still time.

[00:13:58.83] spk_0:
Doctor tony cut me some slack here early in the

[00:14:02.29] spk_1:
co author of this thing. I’m okay if I get harvey mckinnon on the show and you can’t name more than five or six of these,

[00:14:09.94] spk_0:
I’m just getting warmed all

[00:14:10.36] spk_1:
you out when I when I when I have them on.

[00:15:32.74] spk_0:
Okay, so here we go. Another one is will you come to our board and talk to our board about why you give and you know, we’re gonna talk about board training in a few minutes. That’s, you know, our second topic this morning. But um, I do a lot of work helping board members embrace fundraising. It is like the number one piece of my work for years and years and years and part of the barriers. People have this idea that donors are a different species or they come from a different planet and like, I don’t know any donors. I’m the one who gives money all this, all this stuff. Right. We’ve all heard at any of us who are consultants who work with boards have heard these tropes all the time. And I think it’s sort of fun to pull together a donor panel of three or four of your most loyal donors and they don’t have to be the wealthiest donors. I mean, maybe it’s, you know, the classic little old lady who’s been giving $50 a year for 20 years and you invite three or four of them to a board meeting. You say the 1st 20 minutes of board meeting, we’re just going to do Q and A. And we’re going to hear from some people who love us and give us money and have them talk about why they support our work. And this is transformational for board members because they realize they love us, right? We do good work, people care. They want to be part of this, right? So will you come and share with our board why you give and why this is meaningful to you? Um,

[00:15:57.24] spk_1:
so I can see how that enormously uh, eye opening for, for board members who, who get mired in the financials. You know, as we talked about when you wrote your book, the boards understanding the basics of financial, they get mired in the financials and the and the employment practices and the non disclosure and uh, and conflict of interest policy. And they forget that were, you know, this, this wide M. C. A. Does great work in the community. You know, we’re more than just a pool and a fitness center, you know, and, and let’s hear and we hear

[00:16:18.04] spk_0:
from more than just a spreadsheet and aboard media. Right? So I mean, here’s a shout out to someone you may have had on on In the last 550 radio sessions. This case Sprinkle Grace, um, in case another well known great consultant,

[00:16:21.11] spk_1:
k

[00:16:55.34] spk_0:
sprinkled Grace, who’s in san Francisco Grace. Um, you know, and Kay has said, and I don’t know if she was the first, but she said every board meeting needs to include what she calls a mission moment, which is when board members are connecting with their hearts and why they’re in the game and why they care about the work as opposed to the spreadsheets and the policies and the agendas. And you know, this is a classic mission moment is if you have donors sitting with you saying this is why I care about your work. And this is why it connects with me emotionally. Then the board members are connecting emotionally with the work. Um, so I would put that on my list of 12.

[00:16:59.03] spk_1:
It is already there another not expanding the list. You’re not very good. You don’t, you don’t hurt your own cause you don’t want to increase the denominator. You want, you

[00:17:09.52] spk_0:
can take the new yorker out of new york, but you can’t take new york out of the new

[00:17:16.94] spk_1:
yorker. You can’t take the new york out of tony No, I’m keeping track. It’s good. I don’t want you to think that I’m just

[00:17:19.59] spk_0:
trying to distract

[00:17:20.64] spk_1:
you from the purpose of here’s the next one by amplifying somebody here.

[00:18:12.54] spk_0:
Here’s the classic one that we don’t do enough because we don’t have the courage, which is, will you introduce us to other potential donors, Right. Is there anybody else that you know that might care about this work? And you know, again, I don’t think that’s the first question out of your mouth, but if you have someone who’s enthusiastic and they’re like, I love this group is like, who do you know? Um, how can you help us? And you know, will you make an introduction? Would you consider hosting a house party? Right. Um, if we have an event which you come and speak at the event, like finding ways to involve them. Um, another question, and this is probably towards the end of the list is you’re so committed, you’re so passionate. Would you help us raise money? Are you a potential volunteer in our fundraising pool? Um, and let’s talk about the volunteer tasks that are available. And could you be one of those people?

[00:18:18.04] spk_1:
Yeah, I like, I like that one a lot.

[00:18:19.97] spk_0:
Yeah. And again, it’s not gonna be everybody. Some folks are like, no, I mean, I’ll give you money. I don’t want to, I don’t want to participate in that way. But other people like, sure. What do you need?

[00:18:28.12] spk_1:
Could you help us?

[00:18:29.17] spk_0:
Could you help us?

[00:18:30.91] spk_1:
What you’ve just done exactly. Um, um, out of 11 by the way.

[00:18:35.64] spk_0:
Thank you. I think we’re there 11 or where they’re 12.

[00:18:38.54] spk_1:
Well, there were 12, but you’re not getting credit for the first one because I gave it to you

[00:18:50.14] spk_0:
sure enough. Um, the domino a new question that’s not on the list, but harvey has thought about is how has covid changed your thinking about giving?

[00:18:54.74] spk_1:
Okay.

[00:19:26.14] spk_0:
And I don’t know if that’s an after before question. Um, but you know where he was going with it. Is is it going to be harder to get donor meetings and how are people feeling about having face to face conversations? And you know, sometimes we’re doing these on zoom now, which I’m fine with. Sometimes we’re meeting with donors. Um Sometimes we’re doing it on the phone. That’s never that’s not new. Um But even just figuring out the meeting protocols and how people are feeling about that I think is an interesting bonus question. Um Alright, feed me one because I think that’s what I got so far.

[00:19:39.64] spk_1:
All right. So now you expanded the denominator by adding the COVID question. So that increased your denominator to 12. Yeah, that’s cool. You got 234 Got nine out of 12 which is about 75% right, 75 is about a C. I’ll give you a C. Plus because you have a good smile and you live in new Hampshire.

[00:19:51.13] spk_0:
I don’t I live in Vermont but whatever.

[00:19:54.94] spk_1:
That’s right. Whatever. Whatever. Um Okay. Straight C plus.

[00:19:59.06] spk_0:
Uh geography test. Let’s see if I’m, if I’m not going to pass the test of, would you like to honor questions? Give me another one, tony like to

[00:20:06.97] spk_1:
honor or someone who is in memory or someone

[00:22:03.94] spk_0:
thank you. So again, this is, this is sort of fundraising. 101 is that sometimes people like the opportunity to use their gift to honor someone they love, who may be alive, who may have passed away, um, or maybe even honor somebody who’s in the organization. I’ve had donors say, you know, I wanted to do this, but I want to do it in honor of the staff because I see how the hard the staff works and you know, they are the heart and soul of the organization. So yeah, I mean, I could honor my grandma, may she rest in peace, but I think I want to honor the employees because they’re kicking. But um, so I have, um, I chaired a capital campaign several years ago and we had the whole conversation about naming opportunities and how to price naming opportunities and all that. But one of the things we decided as if people wanted to do naming opportunities and have little plaques on the walls, they could name it after themselves, like named after a relative or a friend, but they could also name it after a value or a concept they really loved. So we had people who used the naming opportunities to write things like justice and dignity for everyone. And instead of their name, we had a little plaque, you know, for the bookcase that they bought that said justice and dignity for everyone or lifelong learning or you know, things like that. And so the naming opportunity was not just a name. Sometimes it was a value set or a concept. Um, and that made it more palatable for the folks who thought people with more money shouldn’t get to put their names on stuff because that’s inequitable. And you know, I have some, I have some feeling for that, right? I, I appreciate that point of view. I’m also a fairly practical fundraiser, but it was sort of nice said people were given the option of actually naming some value that was important to them. And um, so yes, would you like to honor somebody or something with your gift,

[00:22:10.04] spk_1:
some

[00:22:10.92] spk_0:
value or some idea or some concept? Um, and I thought that was a nice, nice pivot on that particular question.

[00:24:13.44] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two, the podcast pleasantries. You know, I’m grateful. I hope, you know, you should know you certainly better. No, you better finger wag. You better know that. I’m grateful that you listen to nonprofit radio Week after week notice. I don’t say week after week after week it’s not a laborious chore. It’s a pleasure. I hope you’re learning. I hope there’s some entertainment value as well. I’m grateful. Whatever it is you get out of nonprofit radio I’m glad. I’m grateful that you’re with us. I’m glad it’s helping you in your own career, helping your non profit That’s why I do the show pleasantries to you. Our podcast listeners. Thank you for being with me. That is Tony’s take two Now back to 12 new donor questions and train like a champ and then I have switched to a different device because my internet dropped out. That happens when you live at the beach. Sometimes it’s windy or who knows. Uh, so sound is not gonna be as good now because I’m on my phone instead of with my fancy Yeti make, which only connects to my laptop. So Andy’s sound will be the same. Mind is not as good, but we persevered non profit radio perseveres. We’ve had lights turned off. We’ve had, we’ve been at nonprofit technology conference and had taken down taking down around uh, 5 30 when the union was going by with forklifts and taking down displays. It doesn’t matter. We persevered. So the point we were at was just saying that whether you want to do your gift in honor her memory flows very nicely into how would you as the donor like to be recognised?

[00:25:05.34] spk_0:
Yes. So there are people who like their names public and there are some people who prefer to be anonymous. Um, and so we, this is an ongoing debate in the industry is do we publish donor names or not? And I’m in favour of publishing and I think it’s a good thing, but obviously you have to get people’s permission. So I think the key question is may we recognize you publicly or would you prefer to be anonymous? And you know, this implies you have that that tracking form or that pledge form that I was talking about. And you have that you can go through that with the donor and and check that off and then presumably you have a database and you can then honor that request by either recognizing them or making them anonymous. Now a key question we have forgotten, but now I’m remembering is, um, how do you want us to use this gift?

[00:25:07.97] spk_1:
Uh, he gets another one.

[00:26:49.34] spk_0:
Yes. And you know, the point here is that we want all the unrestricted dollars we can get. The best gift you can get from donors, unrestricted general operating use it however you see fit. And there are certainly donors at times who want to restrict their gifts to specific programs or initiatives that you’re doing. Certainly this is true if you’re doing capital fundraising campaign. Um, the tendency I fear is that the solicitor tends to pitch the restricted gift when it’s not necessary to do so. And you know, there are some folks who say, well, you know, most donors would rather know where their money is going. And and my response is I think a lot for a lot of solicitors for a lot of asters, they feel more comfort in asking for a restricted gift. And that’s about our needs as the, as the Askar. And it’s not necessarily about the donors needs. So we have to get better at framing our work and say when you give us the, whatever the amount is, 1000, 5000, 10,000, 50,000. Whatever it supports the whole range of our programs, it supports everything we do in the community. It supports a healthy workplace for our employees. It supports the community members and family members. We support. It helps us build long term sustainability so we can do this work for years. So the best gift you can give us is the unrestricted gift that supports the whole spread of what? And I feel as as Askar as solicitors, we have to get better at pitching that. I think that’s about us. I don’t think it’s about the donor. So that’s one more question. Um, are there any

[00:26:57.44] spk_1:
other, you know, there are, I’m not going to make you agonize over whether or anymore. No. You’ve named you named all the ones that, that I

[00:26:59.57] spk_0:
didn’t get them all.

[00:27:11.24] spk_1:
And then you added one the covid question. So that gives you a 10, 12 Or reduced that to 5/6. And I would say that’s a solid B A beat. You got to

[00:27:12.14] spk_0:
take a B today. I will take I’ll take a B plus.

[00:27:18.74] spk_1:
Well you’re getting a big, you’re getting a beat. So All right. So,

[00:29:07.24] spk_0:
I mean, I want to I want to wrap this part of the conference tony Let me wrap the part of this conversation with a quick little summary here. Um, and then we’ll move to the second half. Um, the stress that we have as Nascar’s I think is around closing the gift, getting the yes. And I feel like there’s a tendency to think if you get that. Yes, you’re like, my work is done. People try to check out or they relax or they stop engaging at the beginning of the relationship. That’s not the end, That’s not the end point, that’s not the victory. Um The whole point is to then ask, how do I keep this donor? How do I make this donor commit even more deeply? How do I find a way to serve them so that they’ll want to give again? And so I feel like the yes is the beginning, it’s not the end. And to me that’s sort of the summation of this whole thing when we get that. Yes. Where do we then go to strengthen and deepen the relationship? And you know, there’s a I can send this to people, we can find a way. But I mean I would turn these into a checklist and I bring them with you. I think it’s okay Um to have a clipboard in front of you when you’re talking to a donor and take notes and you can ask permission to say may I take notes while we’re talking. So I remember stuff because I don’t forget stuff. And is that okay? And I think most people are cool with that but you don’t have to remember these 12 questions. You can bring a cheat sheet with you and you can or you can treat it as a as a form that you fill out when you’re talking with the donor so that you can remember these things and get them into the database. So don’t feel like you have to remember all this stuff. It’s not your job. I think your job is to facilitate the conversation and carry the notes with you if you need them. Yes.

[00:30:24.54] spk_1:
Very sound. Oh I agree. Nobody has a problem with you taking some notes. Um Yeah no I mean you want to preserve this information and and as you said, can convey it back to your to your database for sure. And I like that. Part of the way you, uh, ask how can we be of service to you is by asking for them, asking not require requiring asking for them to be of service to the organization. Would you provide a testimonial? Would you come meet our board, Would you help us with your fundraisers with our fundraising? No, that’s that’s that serves both parties. The benefit to the to the organization of course is greater engagement. Now, now the person isn’t just a donor or investor. There are, there are fundraiser along with you potentially if they agree to that side by side, but we’ll come to a board meeting. There’ll be a V. I. P. Speaker at a board meeting, potentially if they’re willing to do that part. All engagement. That’s all. This was all in service to both the donor by getting them involved in a cause that they already love and service to the non profit as well.

[00:31:37.04] spk_0:
You know, there’s a lot of data on the psychology of giving and why people give and what motivates donors to given all of that. And one of the top reasons is people want to feel connected to something larger than themselves. They want to feel connected to causes or social change or programs that are meaningful to them. Or maybe it reflects on their own experience, um, you know, in need, they had early in their life that the organization or appear organization helped to take care of for them. And so we’re giving them opportunities to more deeply connect with the community that’s creating this change. Um, so it’s an honor. I mean we feel like, you know, we feel like asking people to give as a burden. I think that’s totally backwards. Giving is an honor. It’s a privilege to give and I frankly think it’s a privilege to ask and, and then I think it’s a privilege to be in relationship with the people who give so that you can then deepen that relationship and strengthen their work. So, um we have to be proud, we have to be proud fundraisers. We have to embrace the fact that this is necessary and beautiful and holy work and not treated as a chore but treated as a chance to really improve our communities and deepen relationships and all of that.

[00:32:40.54] spk_1:
It’s time for a break, send in Blue. It’s an all in one digital marketing platform with tools to build end to end digital campaigns that look professional are affordable and keep you organized. They do digital campaign marketing, that’s what we’re talking about. Most marketing software for big companies designed for them, has an enterprise level price tag, sending blue is priced for nonprofits. You heard the Ceo Stefan say this all last last week more articulately than than your lackluster host does. It’s an easy to use marketing platform that walks you through the steps of building a campaign. You want to try out sending blue and get a free month. Go to the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in blue. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for the second half of 12 new donor questions and train like a champ.

[00:32:43.84] spk_0:
Um, I think that’s the 12 questions. What else were we talking about today? Tony

[00:32:50.74] spk_1:
Such a such an unprepared guests I haven’t seen and I can’t, I can’t name have I think we’re

[00:32:54.72] spk_0:
talking about training, we’re talking about, we’re talking about training

[00:33:39.64] spk_1:
boards. It maybe 551 shows that since I’ve seen this, this unprepared we’re talking about we’re talking about upping your game and training and facilitating and let’s not limited to board training and facilitating you. Might be might be training your fellow, your fellow staff. Uh, maybe you’re a, uh, maybe you’re a consultant who does training and like the up the game a bit in training facilitating. So, or maybe it’s maybe it’s board work. So, the one of your, one of your articles that I want to start with is the one about, Uh, not over stuffing your agenda. You feel like people try to pack too much into an hour or 90 minutes or a half a day or a full day. So, uh, do you have any idea what that article is about that you

[00:33:42.44] spk_0:
wrote? I’m a Volunteer Today. Friends. I’m here and I’m being abused by the host just for the record. I’m doing this is but

[00:33:54.24] spk_1:
but even volunteers, we have expectations. Even volunteers don’t just walking

[00:34:05.34] spk_0:
by. I am tony I am crushing this. Let’s acknowledge this. I’m doing great today. Anyway. two per your question. Um, we have to start by thinking a little bit about how people learn,

[00:34:09.84] spk_1:
how people learn and what your goal is. Yeah.

[00:36:26.93] spk_0:
And so, you know, there’s there’s a lot of learning theories and I won’t get too geeky with folks, but there’s a learning theory that I that I think is intuitive and people understand is that we all have different learning styles and there’s an acronym V A R K bark that represents this so obvious visual, Right? Some people learn stuff visually. They look at images. They look at video. I mean, that’s their that’s their learning style. Some people are auditory a they like to talk, they like to listen, right? That’s the way. And certainly people who tune into a podcast or radio show like this are probably leaning toward auditory learning as their preferred learning method. We have, we have there are, which is the reading and writing. People who read stuff. People who, right, there are a lot of folks. When I do a workshop, the folks are taking notes and I said, do you ever look at the notes and they say, and I don’t often look at the notes, but the process of writing it down helps the landed in my brain. So I remember it. So those are those are and the k is the kinesthetic people who learned by physically doing things, by manipulating things by handling stuff. So part of my challenge as a trainer and I’ll get to the overstuffed piece in the second here is I want to create learning experience that serves all those kinds of learners. And so if you are standing at the front of the room and you’re showing slides to people and you’re talking at them, and that’s all you’re doing as a trainer, You’re missing half the room, because that’s not their learning style, that’s not how they engage stuff. And so the hard work and the interesting work as a trainer, and I would say, as a facilitator to is to is to design it in a way that it serves a variety of learning styles and learning needs. And when I see an overstuffed agenda, what that looks like to me is somebody has a whole lot of content that they feel like they have to share in the way that they’re going to teach people is by shoving all this into their face as fast as they can, and the theory that if you give them more, they’re going to absorb more, and I just don’t think that works. So going back to what you said, hey, you got to start with your goals, like what am I trying to accomplish in this particular training? What do I want people to master right

[00:36:30.13] spk_1:
now? Okay, yeah,

[00:36:32.43] spk_0:
then once you’ve got that, then the question is, how do we design something that’s accessible to a variety of

[00:37:04.63] spk_1:
learners? Before we, before we continue, I have to uh, add a couple of things, uh, listeners are going to admonish me if I don’t thank you for identifying of arc, because not probably radio we have drug in jail. So if you hadn’t methodically explained each element of bark, then it would have been a serious transgressor and you would have been uh, promptly escorted to jargon, jail free

[00:37:09.83] spk_0:
at last free at last. Yes, you are almighty, I’m free at last.

[00:37:29.23] spk_1:
You are. Um, and I recently had a guest, uh, Laurie listeners remember Laurie Krauss talking about public speaking, the research shows that people retain something like, uh, oh, something like a very small percentage. I don’t know, 2% or 10%. It’s like,

[00:37:31.00] spk_0:
Yeah, I know this data. Yeah. They will they retain 10% of what you say, but they’ll retain 90% of what they do

[00:37:38.63] spk_1:
what they’re doing there. There’s your K. There’s, you can see that, that’s

[00:41:33.41] spk_0:
the K and but it’s also the reading and the talking and the small groups. Okay, so let me make this simple for people, if I’m doing a half day training, you know, like, I’m doing a fundraising training or board development, whatever it could be an hour, and it doesn’t really matter. But let’s say I’ve got you for a morning, the way the way I designed this, and it’s another shout out to our colleague Andrea Kill Stead, who she and I did a book together called train your board and everyone else to raise money. And we spent a lot of time talking through this. Um, hey, I’m going to give you some content. Now, the chunk of content I give you is not going to exceed 15 or 20 minutes. It’s a short piece of, here’s some information you need having, given you that content. I’m then going to launch an exercise or an activity where you work with that content. So maybe there’s some small groups or maybe there’s a writing exercise or maybe it’s a role play. I mean, every fundraising trainer in the world has done role plays where people practice a pitch or practice listening or whatever, right? And then after the exercises over there is going to be some time to debrief and, and think about like what did you just learn? What will you take away from that exercise? And for me it’s always that pattern. Here’s some content now, you’re going to work with the content now, you’re going to reflect on what you learned and how you might use it. And if you had me as your trainer or facilitator for a half a day workshop, you would see this pattern repeated six or seven times in three hours. Um I’m gonna give you some stuff and I’m not going to stand there and talk to you for 60 minutes. I’m not gonna do that. Here’s a chunk of info work with the info. What did you learn? And if you retain nothing else from this part of my conversation with Tony, this is what I want you to retain. Is that pattern repeats itself. And if you can vary up the design of the exercises like okay here’s a writing exercise and the next one is a small group discussion and the next one might be a sequencing exercise where you like I’ve done, I’ve done a class where um we do, we organize a 12 week major gifts campaign um like how to do a speed major gifts campaign. And I will create like post it notes or cards that you put up on the wall. That’s a week one, week two, week three, week four. And then I create cards with a bunch of the activities like call donors, set up appointments, build a gift pyramid, all of those things and I put them all out on the table and I have people try and sequence them and they’re doing in a small group. So what are we doing? Week one, what are we doing? So it’s a classic farc via RK activity because there’s the visual piece, there’s the auditory piece of talking with each other and figuring out where we sequence stuff. There’s the reading and writing piece because you’re reading them, I’ll also give them some blank cards in case I’ve forgotten a step they want to add and I’ll give them a market so they can actually write additional steps. And then there’s the kinesthetic piece of physically manipulating these cards and putting them on a calendar. Um, So that might be, you know, 20 minutes and break out to do that exercise. And then we come back and I said like, what did you learn? Yeah. You know, and what tends to happen in that particular exercises, everybody wants to front load everything and so weeks one and two or look like this, my hand is like wide on the wall and when you get to week 12, there’s nothing, it’s like, okay, maybe you need to spread this out so you don’t kill yourself at the beginning of the campaign and think about a way to sequence it, that’s more humane. Um so I I say the word trainer and that’s intimidating to people because like I’m not a trainer, it’s not what I do, and there’s a tendency to want to hire people like me to come and do it, which is great, you know, I appreciate the work, but I feel like the basic skill set, anybody can learn, you don’t have to have a lot of formal training to be an effective teacher. Um more training helps, More practice helps. But if you sort of master the basics and you do some of the stuff we’re talking about, um, you’ll be good enough.

[00:41:41.91] spk_1:
Let’s talk about, let’s talk about chunking out your time. Yes. How much of that chunking out to share with the participants versus just keeping it to yourself?

[00:43:43.60] spk_0:
Okay. It’s a nice sophisticated question and I’ll give you a two part answer. Part one is that I tend to underestimate the amount of time it takes to do whatever I’m doing. This is true in consulting. This is true in cleaning my house. Um, this is just true in training or cutting the grass or whatever, right? It always takes longer than I think. So my skill set in that area needs improvement even at this advanced stage. Um, Having said that, I have done both times agendas and untimed agendas and what I tend to do if it’s new content and I’m figuring it out is I’ll do a trainer agenda, which is just for me where I’ll show what the times are, but that’s not the agenda I necessarily share with the group because I don’t want them looking at the clock and going, oh my God, we’re late. He’s running behind. Right? So you know, from, for many of the public events, I do, I give out an untimed agenda. I will show times for the brakes and I’ll show times for the start and end, but I won’t time out each section of the agenda. Having said that I’m chairing aboard now and when I do board meetings, I definitely have a timed agenda and I have a very ornate agenda and I’ll just do this from memory and you know, people can use this or not. This is a seven column agenda. The first columnist time like when something is going to start, um the second columnist topic, what are we gonna talk about? Um The third column is who is going to lead that and it ain’t always me. So I’m trying to find other people to share leading portions of the agenda. The fourth column, my favorite column is the decision we need to make around this particular item and I have a bias here and my biases. If you put together an entire agenda for a meeting and there’s no decisions that you’re making and it’s just reporting, you should think real hard about canceling the meeting because there’s so many other ways to share information now we don’t have to physically gather people just to do reports.

[00:43:52.00] spk_1:
Um,

[00:43:57.90] spk_0:
Column # five is follow up needed and you don’t always know that in advance. You might have to figure that out at the meeting.

[00:44:03.75] spk_1:
6es follow up needed.

[00:44:57.09] spk_0:
No, number four is decision of five. Forest decision five is I’m doing this from memory, tony should be very impressed with me. Um For his decision five is the follow up needed. Column number six is, who’s going to do that? Follow up In column # seven. And what’s the deadline by? When is that follow up going to occur? So what the way this works is you fill out some of it in advance, but some of it you don’t know until the meeting when you start figuring out like, okay, what’s our follow up, who’s going to do it? And so you actually use the agenda to build a work plan coming out of the meeting, who’s gonna do stuff and it it sort of creates the guts of the next meeting agenda, which is then about did we follow up? What was the outcome, What subsequent steps do we have to take? Who was going to do those steps? So, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily use that in the training. That’s more of a meeting agenda. We’re trying to get stuff done. And you know,

[00:45:16.89] spk_1:
let me ask you about your meeting agendas, us board chair, you’re saying you do share the timed agenda with everyone. I do. Everybody knows how much time is allocated to each subject? You maybe each row on the Yes, Okay. Everyone knows that.

[00:45:38.99] spk_0:
Yeah. And I put that out in advance. I’ll send that out a couple of days before the meeting. I mean I got a board meeting next Tuesday. I just, this is, this is too granular, but I just sent a notice to all the board members saying, here’s my, here’s like the four or five things I want to talk about. What am I forgetting? Are there boarded items that you want to add to the agenda And you know at least one person has written back and said yeah I’ve got more stuff for the agenda. So

[00:45:43.57] spk_1:
this can apply to any meeting again. Hell

[00:45:45.57] spk_0:
yeah, it could be a board meeting, could be a staff meeting, could be campaign committee.

[00:46:11.78] spk_1:
I’ve been in meetings where there was a time are appointed and the timer was not the the chair or the leader of the discussion that it’s someone else so that so that he or she leading the discussion can stay on topic and make sure that we’re moving each topic. But it’s the timers job to say We only have three minutes left on this 10 minute agenda item. And so it relieves the chair of the burden of watching a watching a clock. There’s actually a timer.

[00:46:39.98] spk_0:
Let me give you a pro tip. I love this suggestion. I totally support the suggestion and my pro tip is if you have somebody in the meeting, a board member, staff member, whomever it is that likes to talk too much and dominates ask them to be the timer because they’re going to be spending more time looking at the clock and trying to keep other people moving rather than pontificating um and taking up all the airwave. So

[00:46:42.31] spk_1:
with something else being

[00:46:50.48] spk_0:
go, it’s a deflection strategy. Um Yeah, that’s my favorite. Um So I bet you have other training questions you brought today since you’re better prepared than I am.

[00:47:17.88] spk_1:
Well, I feel like we’ve covered a lot. Um All right, let’s just let’s, let’s wrap up with managing time is your job. I think that’s that’s critical managing it subsumed in what we’ve been saying. But I want you to make it quick. You have, you have an obligation, you have a responsibility to your audience, Your meeting attendees flush that out.

[00:47:36.08] spk_0:
Thank you. Um It’s very interesting, tony that all the questions you’ve asked about training have focused on time um about not over stuffing, about to put times on agendas and it’s your job to manage time. So this is where you are and that’s interesting to me. Um So

[00:47:38.68] spk_1:
the

[00:47:43.98] spk_0:
work, the work for me as a trainer, when I get in the room, when I get in the room, I’m like doing it. I’m sorry, go ahead finish.

[00:47:51.58] spk_1:
Yeah, we’re out of time. That’s it. I’m the timer and we’re out of time by No, I’m kidding, don’t leave.

[00:49:20.47] spk_0:
Um Okay. So I guess I’m pumped defecating. There I go. Breaking my own rule. So regarding you being the boss of the time for me, the work for as a trainer is the design. It’s figuring stuff out in advance and being prepped. So when I go in the room, I don’t have to think about it too much. I can just do the work and I am doing two things. I’m paying attention to the content and I’m also paying attention to how much time things are taking and you have to have a split brain to be able to do that. Because what I’ll do in real time is all speed stuff up or I’ll slow things down based on how we’re doing against the clock. And sometimes you just have to toss stuff from your agenda because you don’t have time to do it or something more important is happening. And I’ve had, I’ve had trainings where I’ve done where we’ve gotten into really interesting deep water that’s not on the agenda and I don’t want to cut it off because it feels productive to me. So there’s an intuitive piece to this which is doing your prep, having your agenda timed out all that, but then showing up in the room and being present and seeing what’s going on and so part of managing the time is reading the room in understanding how much energy there is around the topic. Sometimes I’ll toss stuff because it just doesn’t feel like there’s any energy to embrace it and you know, I’ll go where the energy of the group is. So to me that’s one answer to your question is to prepare rigorously, but be prepared to throw out what you have prepared if the group is taking you in a different direction and the time is not lining up with what you expected

[00:50:32.36] spk_1:
and not only to throw things out, but I want to amplify something you said to spend more time on something or maybe accelerate your time, not throw something out, but accelerate your time and that’s where you know this becomes an art when on the fly, I do stand up comedy and you gotta, you gotta read the room if if certain jokes are working then you you do more of them and if another topic isn’t you you you move off it, but it’s the same as, it’s the same in a webinar or a facilitation or a face to face meeting the ability to move on the fly, intuitive, intuitively based on the clock and and the energy in the room, you know, you gotta, you gotta be watching both and that’s where it sort of one is quantitative the clock, there’s there’s no beating time. The other reason, how are people reacting to the material and where is their focus?

[00:51:31.16] spk_0:
Yeah. And the other part, I would say, and as a stand up comedian, you understand this. The other part is you don’t want to drive a particular agenda items so far that the energy goes out from it. You want to get out where there’s still some energy left. And sometimes I’ve I’ve co trained with people who wanted to milk a discussion until it completely died and then move to the next thing and you got to get out of a piece of content before all the energy is out. And you know, I mean, again, I think if you if you’re riffing on a joke, you have to learn how to get out before you’ve killed the joke. And um so I would say yes and I mean the I I that’s what I love about training is being in the room and getting that ended her back from the group. It’s been interesting doing this on zoom right and trying to figure out how to, how to transition that energy of the group into a room into something that works remotely. Um, but yes, your job is to both pay attention and be intuitive and serve the group and also managed the clock simultaneously.

[00:51:45.86] spk_1:
We’re gonna leave it there. He’s Andy Robinson, Andy Robinson online dot com. Andy. Thank you very much. tony

[00:51:58.06] spk_0:
It was fun. I’m glad we mastered the technology and I look forward to being in touch with you in the future and I hope folks will reach out if I can be of service to them by everybody.

[00:52:30.55] spk_1:
It certainly should be next week. More coverage of 21 NTCC I think if you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com was sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by sending blue the only all in one digital marketing platform empowering non profits to grow tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in blue. And we did indeed overcome the technology triumph triumph over the technology challenges today. Thanks for hanging in there with us.

[00:53:10.45] spk_2:
Are created. Museum is Claire Meyerhoff shows, social media is by Susan chapman. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Mhm. Thank you for that information. Scotty. He wrote me next week for nonprofit radio Big non profit ideas for the Other 95 go out and be great. Yeah. Mhm.